Strategies For Sustainable Development

Because ignoring the environment ultimately destroys it, India needs practical strategies that let development continue while protecting nature. Several such approaches are being pursued.

Use of non-conventional sources of energy. India relies heavily on thermal and hydro power, both of which harm the environment. Thermal plants release large amounts of carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — and produce fly ash that, if mishandled, pollutes water, land and other parts of the environment. Hydroelectric projects submerge forests and disturb the natural flow of water in catchment areas and river basins. Wind and solar energy offer cleaner alternatives, and efforts are being made to tap them.

LPG and gobar gas in rural areas. Rural households typically burn wood, dung cakes or other biomass, which drives deforestation, shrinks green cover, wastes cattle dung and pollutes the air. To correct this, subsidised LPG — a clean fuel that sharply cuts household pollution and reduces energy wastage — is being supplied, and gobar gas plants are being promoted through easy loans and subsidies. In a gobar gas plant, cattle dung is fed in to produce fuel gas, while the leftover slurry serves as an excellent organic fertiliser and soil conditioner.

CNG in urban areas. In Delhi, switching public transport to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) significantly reduced air pollution and made the air cleaner, and several other Indian cities have since adopted it.

Wind power. In areas where wind speeds are usually high, windmills can generate electricity with no adverse environmental impact — turbines turn with the wind to produce power. The initial cost is high, but the benefits are large enough to absorb it easily.

Solar power through photovoltaic cells. India receives abundant sunlight, which is already used to dry clothes, grains and other goods and to provide warmth in winter, just as plants use it for photosynthesis. With photovoltaic cells, solar energy can now be converted directly into electricity; these cells use special materials to capture sunlight and turn it into power. The technology is especially valuable for remote places where grid supply is impossible or very costly, and it is completely pollution-free. India is expanding solar generation and leads an international body called the International Solar Alliance (ISA).

Mini-hydel plants. In mountainous regions, perennial streams are common. Mini-hydel plants use the flow of such streams to turn small turbines and generate electricity for local use. They are largely environment-friendly because they do not alter the land-use pattern, they meet local demand, and they avoid the need for large transmission towers and cables — thereby also avoiding transmission losses.

Traditional knowledge and practices. Indians have historically lived close to nature, acting as a part of the environment rather than its controller; their old systems of agriculture, healthcare, housing and transport were environment-friendly, and only recently has drifting away from them caused large-scale damage. Healthcare is a telling example: India has about 15,000 plant species with medicinal properties, of which around 8,000 are in regular use across systems such as Ayurveda, Unani, Tibetan and folk medicine. Long sidelined by the western system, these traditions are again in demand for chronic ailments, and today's cosmetics — hair oil, toothpaste, lotions, face creams — are increasingly herbal, environment-friendly, relatively free of side effects and free of large-scale industrial or chemical processing.

Biocomposting. In the drive to raise farm output over recent decades, compost was almost entirely abandoned in favour of chemical fertilisers, damaging large tracts of productive land, contaminating water bodies and groundwater, and steadily raising the demand for irrigation. Farmers across the country are now returning to compost made from organic wastes; in some areas cattle are kept mainly for their dung, a valuable fertiliser and soil conditioner. Earthworms can turn organic matter into compost faster than ordinary composting — a method now widely used — which also helps civic authorities by cutting the volume of waste they must dispose of. …