SNAPSHOTS OF INDIA'S ENVIRONMENT

Had our forest policy not been so pathetic, Veerappan may have never happened. Behind every asthma patient in our polluted cities, there is a clueless administration unable to check air quality. Behind every case of pollution, water crisis, species extinction or even farmer deaths, the hand of the government is unmistakable. At the heart of the problem is India’s environment policies that suffer from a colonial hangover. They are horribly out of tune with the changing times. Paradoxically, they have come as a handy tool for the corrupt to abuse the environment. In some cases, a legitimate demand has become an unlawful act. As we celebrate World Environment Day on June 5, here are a few snapshots of things gone wrong.

BLAME IT ON PAYAL
When Payal Singh saw noxious fumes belching out of her brand new Santro, she was about to cry. She rushed angrily to the company’s office in Faridabad only to find that she was not the only one. Worse still, Maruti’s office in the same area had received similar complaints about their cars. It turns out that Payal’s problem, just like others, has its genesis at a makeshift garage located on the road to Faridabad. Here tankers from public sector oil companies stop over for a ‘quick refuel’ before they reach their respective gas stations. In a matter of a few minutes, hundreds of litres of petrol/diesel are pilfered and replaced with kerosene, cheap dry cleaning solvents or aromatics. The car company says the culprit is adulterated fuel. When Payal confronts oil companies, she is rudely told that their responsibility ends when the tankers leave the company gates. The fuel station owner says he cannot be held responsible for poor fuel quality. And the hoodlums at the garage are just part of a large network of fuel adulterators that exist all over the country. She dare not take on this well-connected dangerous cartel. Whether she likes it or not, the poisonous fumes emanating out of cars such as Payal’s, make Indian cities the most polluted in the world. Now shall we make Payal our scapegoat and blame her for the foul air we breathe?

PROBLEM MINE
Mining is a profitable business. But can mining be done in an environmentally sensitive area? Yes. Ask the criminal-politician nexus in Madhya Pradesh. Four years ago, the Supreme Court sent an expert team to investigate illegal mining near the reserved forest of Madhav National Park. The findings were so shocking that ‘several parts of the report were read in silence lest it shocked the court room’. Here’s what the team found. The law requires an environment impact assessment (EIA) and an environment management plan (EMP) for mining above five hectares of land. The MP government amended its Minor Mineral Rules in 1997 apparently ‘to allow poor people to mine’ in land holding that were less than five hectares in area. However, the team found that the real beneficiaries were only rich contractors. The team also found that in contravention of the rules, each contractor had more than 100 hectares of land under his control. How? The government had issued multiple leases to same contractor, with each lease giving permission to mine within five hectares. None of which would require an EIA or EMP. Howzzzat?

SCANDAL WOOD
Imagine this. You cannot grow a tree that can fetch you lakhs of rupees in the international market. You could land up in jail if you sell the tree, even if it’s growing in your backyard. That’s the strange story of sandalwood in India. And also the secret behind the success of forest brigand Veerappan, who has smuggled sandalwood worth more than Rs 100 crore. (Not to mention the Rs 300 crore governments have spent to nab him.) In many ways, Veerappan is the creation of India’s forest policy. A policy that forbids people to trade in a tree that will instantly make them rich. In the forests where Veerappan’s writ runs large, this law has alienated local people. That’s the reason why poor villagers are willing to become Veerappan’s foot soldiers because they stand to benefit from his illegal trade. Without this law, there wouldn’t be a Veerappan. A direct fallout of this archaic policy has been the loss of foreign exchange. Despite India’s huge potential for sandalwood trade, Malaysia and Thailand are today market leaders in Asia. ‘Why should I protect a tree if it is being culled by smugglers and why shouldn’t I assist Veerappan,’ asks Murugan, a villager in Satyamangalam forest. Even the forest bureaucracy will be at a loss to reply to Murugan.

NUCLEAR PUZZLE
Irony doesn’t get any more ironic. Nuclear power technologies are obsolete, environmentally hazardous and prohibitive. So it is not surprising why most European countries including Germany, England and Sweden are phasing out nuclear power. But India has warmly embraced it. There are close to 14 projects underway in different parts of the country. And these wherever the projects are located, they have been greeted with protests by local people who fear radiation. Recently, the Supreme Court was shown studies that allege that some 50,000 people in Jaduguda are at risk, many suffering from genetic deformities. At other places, people have demanded compensation for relocation. For example, in Jharkhand’s East Singhbhum district, irate villagers have stopped officials from mining uranium in their area. The problems don’t end there. New technology is becoming impossible to get as most countries have decommissioned their reactors. And to top it all, uranium stocks have almost run out in the country. So why is the Indian government persisting with nuclear power when it constitutes just 2 percent of the country’s power generation? There are no clear answers to this one.

PEST ATTACK
Don’t make the mistake of uttering the slogan ‘India Shining’ to Subbaiah. He will knock your head and throw you out of his house. Most of Subbaiah’s friends have committed suicide. But that’s not an unusual phenomenon in the parched district of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh. Subbaiah is a farmer who believed pesticides were supposed to kill pests, not farmers. His friends consumed the pesticide to end their lives ruined by debts and crop failure. He can barely pronounce Methomyl, a highly poisonous pesticide banned in many countries but used freely in the state. ‘How am I supposed to know that it should not be used,’ he asks. Subbaiah is right. There are almost 13,000 retailers in Warangal district alone selling pesticides manufactured by some 93 companies. With very little information and awareness about their usage, indiscriminate use of pesticides is leading to crop failures and environmental nightmares. Subbaiah’s problem can be squarely placed at the doorsteps of the Central Insecticides Board, whose job is to certify and monitor pesticides. Under the rules, once a pesticide is certified and enters the market, there is no mechanism to either recall or ban it. So whether it is Methomyl in Andhra or the dreaded Endosulfan in Kerala, farmers like Subbaiah will continue to live dangerously.

FREE TRADE
Mohammed Gaine, a resident of Jammu & Kashmir, doesn’t consider himself an outlaw. He thinks it’s his birthright to weave and sell the banned Shahtoosh shawls. (A single shawl can fetch Rs 75,000 in the illegal market.) ‘Weaving Shahtoosh is a tradition that goes back to more than 600 years,’ says Gaine. Many environmentalists disagree. They argue that its wool comes from the endangered Chiru (only 70,000 are left in the world) and India is signatory to an international convention that bans trade in Shahtoosh. Gaine says that there are thousands of weavers like him whose livelihoods depend on Shahtoosh shawls. ‘What happens to us? Why doesn’t the government encourage captive breeding of the animal and legalise the trade.’ ‘That way weavers would have a selfish interest in the survival of the animal and the Chiru population could well increase,’ he adds. Gaine may have a point. A strict ban may make the trade even more secretive and lead to the quick extinction of the chiru. And that’s not what environmentalists as well as Gaine would want. Would they?

PASSING THE MUCK
As the Americans gets paranoid about losing their jobs to Indians, here is a different perspective on outsourcing in the Indian context. Image-conscious automobile companies will flash ISO 14001 certificates whenever they are asked to prove their green credentials. Sure, going by their proven track record it will be hard to pin them down. But a close scrutiny reveals a different picture altogether. Of the 15,000 parts that go to make a vehicle, over 80 percent is outsourced to the small-scale sector. Companies conveniently shift these polluting processes to keep their backyard clean. And the result: 80 percent of pollution is generated at the vendors’ site and only 20 percent at the automakers’ production plant. Little wonder then that the small-scale sector is always at the receiving end of environmentalists. And even the small-scale sector, which employs about 20 million people, has managed to manipulate the system. Small-scale industries get benefits from the government as long as they continue to remain small. Government policy discourages them to move towards medium or large sector, where they can invest on the pollution control technologies and better resource utilisation. So it is common to find one entrepreneur owning 8-10 small industries under different names just to get the subsidy. Welcome to the pollution chain.

BUSINESS SENSE
Tirupur sits on a huge paradox. On one hand it is the biggest export success story of India. And on the other, it is home to an ecological nightmare. This sleepy town in Tamil Nadu has grown rapidly in the past few decades. Textile exports have been increasing, and traders are confident of overcoming the Chinese scare as the quota regime is dismantled. But over the years, the water-intensive industry has sucked every drop of groundwater in the region. To make matters worse, the Noyyal river is nothing but a sewer with effluents being dumped indiscriminately. And industrial waste is piling up all around the town. As the demand for water increases, several private firms are getting water from nearby towns and a huge private initiative is underway. Tirupur has many lessons to offer. With the government doing little to improve infrastructure, the industry’s investments have increased drastically. Unplanned industrialisation can become a threat not only to local people but also to the survival of the industry. Now many foreign clients are checking on environmental performances to do business with these companies. As they say, sound environmental policies always make for good economics. A lesson Tirupur’s entrepreneurs are learning the hard way.

(New Indian Express May 30, 2004)