Watch the full video (above) of a discussion on the book ‘Navigating the Labyrinth: Perspectives on India’s Higher Education’, edited by Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta.
The panel discussing the book comprised Pankaj Chandra, Apoorvanand Jha, Devesh Kapur, and Pratap Bhanu Mehta. The discussion was moderated by Anubha Bhonsle.
As the country moves forward to sustain efforts undertaken through past water, sanitation, and housing programmes, while increasing focus on integrated water and sanitation through Jal Shakti and Jal Jeevan missions, this is an opportune time to deliberate on lessons learned from the field and engage with recent research findings. The goal of providing tap water for every household by 2024 will need a new thrust on wise water management practices, which would need to be supported by appropriate policies and incentives. Although there is recognition of the need to improve resource planning, service delivery, pollution abatement, and recycling, while expanding infrastructure for the unserved and underserved, critical questions around how this can be achieved in an integrated and sustained manner remain unanswered. While the principle of subsidiarity and decision-making at the lowest effective scale could hold the key, how can these principles be operationalised at a national scale?
In this context, the Scaling City Institutions for India: Sanitation (SCI-FI) initiative at CPR with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in partnership with UNICEF and WaterAid India, organised a day-and-a-half long national workshop titled ‘WASH Futures: Subsidiarity for Service Delivery’.
National Workshop and its thematic spread
The National Workshop served as a platform for discussions around some of SCI-FI’s key research themes and connect them to the new policy context in the sector in terms of governance and institutional roles.
The primary participants of the workshop were governments (at central, state and local levels), academicians, researchers, National Faecal Sludge and Sepatage Management (NFSSM) alliance members, policymakers, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), and other development partner agencies.
The inaugural session setting the agenda for the workshop was followed by deliberations on key thematic areas, which are identified as under:
Continued reliance on groundwater sources, without adequate recharge and predominance of sporadically serviced on-site sanitation systems – septic tanks and pits – evidence the commensurateness of water and sanitation infrastructure and services in India. Notwithstanding these deprivations, urban growth in the country has been precipitous in the last two decades, triggering in-situ growth, peripheral outgrowth and growth of satellite settlements.
A study on the identification of large and dense villages (LDVs) and their water sanitation facilities in India (which included 3892 Census Towns (CTs), settlements identified as urban by the Census of India but are administratively rural, and 155, 056 villages) revealed that they accounted for 507 million population based on Census 2011 data. It also revealed that a majority of these settlements are proximate to Class I cities which have a population greater than 100,000. More intriguingly, there is a continuum between these proximate rural and urban settlements not only in resembling socio-cultural and political economic structures but also through discernible similarities in water and sanitation infrastructure. LDVs which are within 25 km distance from nearby Class I cities account for 47 percent of the total LDV population of 507 million and 49 percent of their households with water within premise and 35 percent of households with toilets connected to on-site sanitation systems (Census 2011).
There has emerged a clear evidence of economic, social and environmental linkages between the urban areas and proximate settlements which stand to benefit from collective development planning. Another primary survey conducted in 2018 covering 60 LDVs in 5 states underscores trends in preferences for septic tanks and pits and variations in their design and make based on socio-economic, technical and behavioural factors influencing household decision making on their construction and maintenance. This study underscores and impels the exploration of rural-urban continuum through a microscopic analysis of water and sanitation infrastructure and services to gauge the viability of common waste treatment facilities through integrated planning and streamlining desludging services.
It is also imperative to facilitate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals. Dovetailing efforts to converge pursuance of Goal 6 of Clean Water and Sanitation with Goal 10 on reduced inequality and Goal 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities which call for ‘supporting positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning’. The case for integrated planning for urban-rural contiguous areas is further heightened by the government’s conviction to build faecal treatment plants and provide tap-water to all households by 2024. This session deliberated on cross-jurisdictional planning opportunities both within ‘mission’ plans and in wider governance arrangements within a subsidiarity framework.
Technical Session on decoding the sanitation mechanics.
The sanitation value chain emphasises on a systemic approach to address the prevalent challenges in the sanitation fold. This starts with the nature of the containment structures (on-site sanitation systems) and extends to the value of the recycled and reused products, emphasising on plethora of innovative technological interventions in the sanitation value chain. So far, the understanding of on-site containment structures, which are an essential part of the sanitation chain has been limited. A new nationally representative survey of OSS in secondary and smaller cities and in LDVs aims to address this gap in knowledge will be presented and debated.
Different forms of desludging services prevalent to the local context also serve an important role in the value chain as it holds cross cutting linkages with technical and social (reducing the human intervention in desludging) dimensions. Poor or limited FSSM in the current context are not fully mechanised and involve manual cleaning in one form or the other. Generating value out of the waste is a concept of resource efficient system, thus selection of sustainable FSSM systems for treating the sludge and valorisation of the treated waste into portable water and nutrient-rich biosolids or soil conditioners is to be viewed very critically in terms of attracting investments and minimising the environmental impacts.
This session gave a comprehensive insight on each component of the sanitation value chain, from the technical perspective of various subject experts with an enriched experience in this sector. Based on group discussions the session explored how the policy environment and intervention could be more supportive of alternative technologies and service delivery models, with the goal of increasing access to safe and sustainable water and sanitation in urban and rural areas.
Technical Session on Private Sector Participation to bridge the sanitation market gaps.
The sanitation sector presents an opportunity for a market of about $62 Billion by 2021. As per an earlier CPR-CII study, the Swachh Bharat Mission was expected to generate demand of Rs 32,000 Crores for the sanitary ware industry, Rs 27,900 Crores of demand for micro-finance, Rs 4,16,000 Crores for the equipment industry among other sectors[1]. Private sector engagement in the sanitation service sector remains unregulated and is characterised by indiscriminate disposal of the collected faecal sludge, precarious safety protocols, and unstandardised service provisions. There exist several key opportunities for engagement of the private sector ‘to leverage new business models and to enable efficiency and at competitive costs.’ As the scale of sanitation challenges is shifting from the issues of construction of toilets to the issues of sustained usage and continued O&M, cost recovery and driving innovative technological solutions, the role of the private sector will emerge in a broader light. This has also been articulated in the national policies encouraging Urban Local Bodies to invite private capital in urban infrastructure as well as to bring in private sector efficiency in the delivery of urban services, O&M and FSSM.
This session reflected and elucidated on the new studies that document the prevalent and emerging practices and business models underscoring private sector participation across the entire sanitation value chain. It also analysed the regulatory and governance frameworks present and envisaged for private sector led service provision. Group discussions deliberated on practices that can encourage partnerships, entrepreneurship, technology and financing in the water and sanitation sector.
Technical Session on Inclusive Sanitation: Rhetoric or Reality?
The sanitation ecosystem in its current form often misses critical elements of inclusion and equity in the value chain. Most city level sanitation chains do not adequately implement principles of inclusion, particularly in the city sanitation planning, technology selection, institutional reforms, financial mobilisation and managerial leadership. This impresses on the need for an ecosystem to mainstream inclusive sanitation processes in all urban management endeavors, while strengthening capacities of the institutions (public, private and community) to accord priority to inclusive sanitation.
This alignment of equity and inclusiveness in the city wide sanitation needs to be built across planning, designing, implementation, regulatory, monitoring and management levels. It also needs to include designing innovative technology options to increase and facilitate access, safety and security of women, aged, differently abled, transgender and other vulnerable groups in the public locations like school, work place, health centers, markets, parks, travel hubs and others. Tracking access and usage of equitable sanitation infrastructure and understanding the reasons for inequitable access and variability across the sanitation chain will gain enormous traction in the years to come. Provisioning of FSM services to poor and marginalised in cities, keeping in mind the principle of justice and equity, has already gained grounds in few cities. Safety and dignity of workers, capacity building and skill building of poor and marginalised to operate and manage sanitation (including FSM) systems require integration in city wide inclusive approaches.
This thematic session elucidated the need to align the concerns of city wide inclusive sanitation for one and all and the steps taken by the partners – government, CSOs, CSRs – to promote inclusive approaches in sanitation to facilitate access, ownership of FSM services in the city. The session also deliberated on various models adopted for encouraging inclusion and the challenges faced to embed and integrate inclusive sanitation in cities in a sustained manner and to draw recommendations for enabling policy frameworks on inclusion in sanitation.
Technical Session on Scale and Institutional Capacities
With the thrust on water and integrating sanitation with water programmes, emphasis on scale and institutional capacities of stakeholders is a key area for research and action. Under the new proposed subsidiarity principles in governance of the sector, capacity building of state level institutions as well as district and local government institutions (PRIs/ULBs) will be accorded priority. Institutional landscape in both water and sanitation space across all levels are faced with capacities which are inadequate, fragmented and often conflicted. Both water and sanitation programmes are viewed in silos in terms of planning, designing and implementation, instead there is a need to see both sector integrated programmatically. There are other issues surmounting the institutional capacities, with different programmatic aspects dealt with overlapping roles and responsibilities. However, there is a need for compliance of principles of subsidiarity to guarantee independence to a lower authority in relation to a higher tiers of governance. This highlights the need for oversight or authority to monitor dovetailing of both water and sanitation programs and investments in integrated manner; resolve conflicting issues and taking necessary decisions. As per the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, the functions of water and sanitation rests with local bodies but the question remains whether these bodies are capacitated enough to manage the function, and whether funds and functionaries are present with the local bodies to play the role effectively.
This session presented an overview on the need of scale and institutional accountability requirements through capacity building assessment of state level institutions as well as local governance institutions and outline a road map for the bridging the capacities of the concerned stakeholders. It deliberated on seeing water and sanitation institutional framework in an integrated manner, with local level accorded priority.
Closing Plenary Session: Moving forward on recommendations and areas for action
This session with a mix of presentations and a panel discussion discussed the prospects of resource planning, service delivery, pollution abatement, and recycling through an integrated lens. Connecting with the discussions of all the technical sessions, the future of government initiatives in WASH and the key challenges towards sustaining efforts for the unserved and underserved was explored. It deliberated on what is understood to be gaps in knowledge given the broader consensus on the need to adopt principles of subsidiarity and decision making at the lowest effective scale. These issues were discussed from the perspectives of practitioners in government, development partners and researchers in the field.
ThePrint India was the digital partner for the workshop. Media coverage of the workshop can be accessed below:
On 8 June, 2017, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directed chairpersons of 10 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) to cease functioning. This order was issued in the context of an earlier judgment delivered by the NGT on 24 August, 2016 in Rajendra Singh Bhandari v State of Uttarakhand & Others highlighting a serious institutional problem that has received little attention over the years: the composition of the Boards, and the qualifications of persons appointed as chairpersons and member secretaries, has not been fully in compliance with the letter of the law.
Shibani Ghosh, environmental lawyer and Fellow at CPR, contextualises and unpacks both the August 2016 judgment and the recent order of the NGT in an interview below.
What was the original case before the National Green Tribunal with regard to State Pollution Control Boards?
State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) are constituted by State Governments under the provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 [Water Act] and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981 [Air Act], and are important actors in Indian environmental regulation. The case was filed before the National Green Tribunal on the ground that persons holding important posts in the Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board did not possess the necessary qualifications as required in the two Acts. According to the applicant, appointees were often officers of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) and Indian Forest Services (IFS) who held ex-officio posts and did not have the necessary knowledge and experience in the field of environment. Further, those appointed would often discharge their functions on a part-time basis, and many were transferred to a different posting before completing their term.
The crux of the case lies in the qualifications of persons eligible to be nominated as chairpersons and to be appointed member secretaries of SPCBs by the State Governments. The provisions state that the chairperson must have ‘special knowledge or practical experience in respect of matters relating to environmental protection’. In the case of the Water Act, there is an alternate eligibility criterion for the chairperson – a person with knowledge and experience in administering institutions dealing with matters relating to environmental protection could also be nominated.
With regard to member secretaries, both laws state that the person must possess ‘qualification, knowledge and experience of scientific, engineering or management aspects of pollution control’, and must be engaged on a full-time basis.
The laws do not elaborate further on the qualifications, and the rule-making powers to decide the terms and conditions of service of the chairpersons and the member secretaries lie with the respective State Governments.
Initially the matter pertained only to the State of Uttarakhand, but during the hearings concerns were raised about the (lack of) qualifications of persons heading other SPCBs as well. As a result, the Tribunal directed all states to become a party to the case, and the final judgment applies to all states and Union Territories.
What were the key features of the judgement passed by the National Green Tribunal in August 2016?
The key aspect of the August 2016 judgment is that the Tribunal provided guidance for how the terms ‘special knowledge’ and ‘practical experience’ in the context of the SPCB’s chairperson’s qualifications are to be understood, as they are not defined in the two laws. The Tribunal concluded-
“122 … the Special knowledge is where the information one acquires through learning which is exceptional, in greater quality and degree. It can be said to mean knowledge which is surpassing, distinguishing and exceptional in nature and is derived through rigorous study or research over a reasonable period of time, in the field of matters relating to environment.
Therefore, any person with knowledge which is ordinary or casual in respect of environmental matters will not qualify or become eligible in respect of appointment under consideration. Knowledge, qualified with the word special, has to be acquired through accepted and established norms of education i.e. an academic qualification in the field of environmental protection as recognized by university established by law.” (emphasis as in original)
The Tribunal specifically added that the candidate must have to her credit ‘either M.Sc. in Environmental Science/ Environmental Management or M.E./M. Tech. in Environmental Engineering or equivalent degree’.
On ‘practical experience’, the Tribunal held-
“This would mean that a person with a basic knowledge and understanding of environment and its protection, which he might have obtained in the form of a Degree in Science, would be eligible for appointment if he has had actual experience in environmental protection. … A person having practical experience in environmental protection and abatement of pollution, but without at least the basic knowledge and understanding of the environmental processes through degree in Science subjects, cannot be regarded as eligible for the said post. … That leads us to hold that a person having practical experience must have a degree with Botany/Zoology/Chemistry or an allied subject wherein basic knowledge about ecology and environment are a part of the curriculum.”
With reference to the third eligibility criteria for the post of the chairperson under the Water Act – knowledge and experience in administering institutions dealing with environmental protection – the Tribunal stressed on the requirement of knowledge along with experience. It held that a person was not an eligible candidate just by virtue of administering an institution dealing with environmental protection – as that was mere experience, and not necessarily knowledge. The Tribunal did not exclude IAS and IFS officers from the pool of potential candidates, but held that candidates must have a degree in a science subject which relates to the environment.
For member secretaries, the Tribunal emphasised that the law specifically required full-time appointments and that the candidate must have a ‘Masters of Engineering, Technology, Environmental Engineering or allied Sciences where Pollution Control forms a component of the curriculum’.
The Tribunal directed the State Governments to examine the qualifications of the current chairpersons and member secretaries, and decide whether they are in accordance with the law and the interpretation provided in the judgment. It gave the states three months from the date of the judgment to complete this exercise.
Besides this specific direction, the Tribunal also issued guidelines to the State Governments to ensure that SPCBs function smoothly. Although these were termed as ‘guidelines’, they were worded prescriptively. Inter alia, the State Governments had to notify rules under the Water Act and Air Act specifying the qualifications for the posts of the chairperson and member secretary; posts of chairpersons and member secretaries are to be openly advertised to attract the best talent; chairpersons and member secretaries are to have a fixed term– not dependent on their tenure in the State Government, and they are to be allowed to complete their full tenure.
Why is the matter back in news now?
In its 24 August, 2016 judgment, the Tribunal had given all states three months to ensure that the appointments were in consonance with the law and the guidance provided in its judgment. Some states had filed appeals in the Supreme Court against the August 2016 judgment. But as the Supreme Court has not stayed the judgment, states are expected to comply with it. The Tribunal is currently considering whether the states have complied with its judgment or not.
In its order on 30 May 2017, the Tribunal noted that states had not taken effective actions to comply with its judgment. It issued a show cause notice to all chairpersons of SPCBs whose appointment was not in consonance with the judgment to justify as to why they should not be asked to cease functioning as Chairman of the respective Boards.
After receiving replies to its show cause notice from various states, in its last order (8 June, 2017), the Tribunal directed the chairpersons of the SPCBs of the states of Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telengana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Manipur to cease functioning, as their appointment, despite passage of sufficient time, did not comply with the Tribunal’s judgment. The government of Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab were given some additional time. There was no observation with regard to other states. The case is now listed for further hearing 4 July, 2017.
What implications does the NGT’s judgement have for the Boards’ functioning?
The SPCBs as frontline environmental regulators play a very important in India’s environmental governance. As noted by the Tribunal in its 24 August, 2016 judgment, and again in its 8 June, 2017 order, the SPCBs’ duties are predominantly technical in nature. To be able to discharge these duties, whoever is at the helm of affairs must have the capability, of course with assistance from the rest of the Board and staff, to understand, and respond to, the huge array of issues faced by the SPCBs. If the Tribunal’s judgment with regard to appointments is followed in letter and spirit it can significantly improve the institutional capacity of the SPCBs.
It could be argued that the 10 SPCBs whose chairpersons are no longer permitted to perform their duties will not be able to function properly. While it is not a desirable state of affairs, it is unfortunately not unusual for pollution control boards to be without full-time chairpersons. For instance, the post of the chairperson of the Central Pollution Control Board lay vacant for four and half years.
While the Tribunal’s stand on the issue is welcome, it is important to keep in mind that there are other structural issues such as autonomy in day-to-day functioning, transparency in decision making, and accountability for (in)action and poor decision making which are critical to the effective functioning of the SPCBs and for improving environmental outcomes. But these are not at issue before the Tribunal in this case.
Read an earlier piece by Ghosh on Understanding the National Green Tribunal here.
Despite the potential of cities to foster a low-carbon energy transition, the governance of energy in India broadly remains within the purview of central and state governments. However, the Smart Cities Mission, a new urban scheme launched in 2015, gives Indian cities new powers to govern energy, a surprising departure from previous urban and energy policies. We argue that this shift is significant and we therefore raise three questions: 1) what kind of energy projects are planned and what does it reveal about the cities’ vision towards energy? 2) does the Smart Cities Mission foster a low-carbon energy transition and if so, how is this transition envisaged? 3) and finally, what are the rationale and the drivers behind this apparent shift?
To address these questions, we build on a database of projects and financing plans submitted by the first 60 cities selected in the Smart Cities Mission. We find that cities have earmarked an immense 13,161 INR crore (~1.4 billion GBP) for energy projects, with most funds dedicated to basic infrastructure, primarily focused on enhancing the grid and supply. Cities also proposed projects in solar energy, electric vehicles, waste to energy and LED lighting, indicating their appetite for low-carbon projects. While cities were given institutional space to prioritise certain technologies, their interventions were conditioned by centrally sources of financing which were limited to certain mandated technologies. A focus on technology, rather than planning, undermined the role of cities as strategic decision-makers. What emerges is a dual faced reading of the Smart Cities Mission, indicating the potential and pitfalls of contemporary decentralized energy governance in the Global South.
The full working paper can be accessed here.
Watch the full video (above) of the panel discussion on ‘Options for Afghanistan: The Trump Tweets and After’ featuring Saad Mohseni (Director, Moby Group); Tahir Qadiry (Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, New Delhi); Jayant Prasad (former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan); Amar Sinha (Member, National Security Advisory Board and former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan); Gautam Mukhopadhaya (Senior Visiting Fellow, CPR and former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan); and chaired by Jyoti Malhotra (Editor, National and Strategic Affairs, ThePrint).
On September 9, 2019, a draft interim agreement, reached after nine rounds of talks between US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Taliban was abruptly called off by President Trump through a tweet, ostensibly on account of the death of a US serviceman in a Taliban suicide attack. In the tweet, President Trump also revealed that he had secretly invited Taliban leaders and President Ghani separately to Camp David to clinch the talks under his personal supervision. This too was cancelled.
The talks, which the Afghan government has not been part of but has been regularly briefed on, centred primarily on a partial timetable for a withdrawal of US troops from five bases in Afghanistan within 135 days, and the kick-starting of intra-Afghan talks in two weeks as part of a composite package that the US maintains. This package includes guarantees that Afghan soil would not be used against the US, a comprehensive ceasefire, and intra-Afghan talks leading to a peace agreement between the two sides, and possibly an interim government. Its suspension took place against a background of a wave of violence in Afghanistan that included major offensives against key provincial capitals and suicide attacks in Kabul, weeks before a delayed Presidential elections scheduled for September 28, 2019.
The panel organised by CPR discussed the status and contents of US-Taliban talks, as well as the importance of the September 28 elections.
The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.
The media coverage of the panel discussion can be read in ThePrint and The Hindu.
CPR scholars have closely followed these developments and analysed the geopolitical implications for India. Read the curated analysis below:
Gautam Mukhopadhaya writes in Outlook India about the need to create a stable environment for the upcoming presidential elections in Afghanistan. Calling the USA’s proposed deal with the Taliban ‘a recipe for chaos’, Mukhopadhaya highlights that India must not hesitate in supporting the elections as that will be a huge morale booster for Afghans.
Gautam Mukhopadhaya writes in The Hindu about how ‘the suspension of US-Taliban talks has opened the space for the holding of Afghan presidential elections and a window of opportunity for the international community and India to reset their approach to peace and withdrawal.’ He highlights that the outcome of the election ‘could provide a stronger foundation for talks with the Taliban that are Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled, and not as dictated from Washington, Islamabad, Doha or Moscow.’
Gautam Mukhopadhaya also appeared in an interview with The Wire where he analysed Donald Trump’s decision to call off talks with the Taliban, highlighting what was wrong with the Khalilzad deal and what India should do next.
Gautam Mukhopadhaya appeared in an interview with Strategic News International analysing the stalling of US-Taliban talks. Additionally, Mukhopadhaya delivered a lecture on Democratisation in Afghanistan organised by The International Institute for Strategic Studies.
In August 2019, G Parthasarathy wrote in The Hindu Business Line about how a phased out withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan will give the Afghan army and ethnic militia time to be well-armed and trained to face the Taliban. Parthasarathy further highlighted that if ‘Southern Afghanistan is destabilised, Pakistan’s own stability will face challenges from across the Durand Line.’
In July 2019, Brahma Chellaney wrote in DailyO about how Donald Trump’s Faustian bargain with the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban will seriously impinge on India’s regional interests and security, especially in the Kashmir Valley. Against the backdrop of Trump’s offer to mediate the Kashmir conflict and other actions such as barring oil shipments from Iran and raising India’s energy-import bill, expelling India from the US Generalised System of Preferences, and mounting a trade war to secure Indian concessions, Chellaney highlights that India should be deeply concerned about Trump putting India at risk by emboldening Pakistan.
In the third instalment of a monthly op-ed series in the Hindustan Times entitled ‘Clearing the Air’, Professor Navroz K Dubash examines the elements of a long-term plan that could address the root causes of India’s air pollution crisis.
We are in the midst of that season in north India, when air quality debates die down, and parents send their children out to play. After all, the air quality index suggests “moderate” and “poor” air days, with hardly a “very poor” or “severe”. Of course, at moderate levels, the level of PM2.5 is still 2.5-3.5 times the World Health Organization (WHO) safe levels, and poor is 3.5-5 times higher. But given what Delhi feels like in the winter months, February and March seem positively inviting. After all, one cannot worry about air quality all year round, right?
Unfortunately, wrong. We may have no option but to send our children out to play, but we should also be simultaneously working hard on long-term solutions. During the apocalyptic winter months, justifiable cries of alarm translate to reactive measures: an (ineffectual) firecracker ban, throwing money at “Happy Seeders” to stop crop burning, and periodic bans on truck traffic. Some short-term response measures are needed for emergencies. But to make a real dent in the air problem requires measures to address the deep-rooted causes and not simply react to the symptoms. This is best done when we are not in panic mode.
The recent National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) is a missed opportunity to establish a long-term strategy. It sets a target without a realistic road map, proposes a city-based approach that downplays regional effects, and adopts a something-for-everyone approach rather than prioritising action. In the midst of election season, formulating a serious approach to air quality plan remains a missed political opportunity. So, what are elements of a long-term plan that truly starts the long, slow business of addressing root causes?
First, a truly effective strategy will place the challenge of ensuring compliance and enabling enforcement at the heart of pollution regulation. Too often, actions are written as if enforcement is a secondary challenge when it is actually primary. For example, to limit industrial pollution, will a combination of monitoring technology, strengthened laws, and enhanced capabilities of pollution control authorities work? Or is the enforcement challenge so great that we should simply force industries to switch to cleaner, if costlier, fuels, which may be easier to monitor? The answer is not entirely clear, but this is the question that should inform strategic policymaking.
Second, many pollution sources need multifaceted responses. For example, waste burning may best be addressed by upstream shifts in consumer behaviour, to limit waste at source. Transport emissions need a mix of public transport investments, behavioural change in transport patterns, and new transport technologies such as electric vehicles. Reactive solutions, such as banning waste burning or certain forms of transport, are but band aids.
Third, many solutions require negotiated solutions to political and economic challenges. Crop burning is unlikely to be solved by a technical solution if not burning crops costs more. The resolution lies in political negotiations around cropping pattern shifts, agricultural support policies and water use policies. Political negotiations take time and need to start now, before pressure for quick fixes sets in.
Fourth, a city-by-city approach is invariably limited. Much pollution occurs outside cities — by industry, brick kilns, power plants and crop burning. City boundary based regulation only encourages emissions leakage such as relocation of industries to the outskirts. India has to develop regulatory institutions that operate at the level of the regional “airshed”.
Fifth, we need to pick a short list of big wins to demonstrate progress and rally the public. But equally, these need to be carefully selected and maximally supported rather than the current scattershot approach. The Ujjwala scheme to provide clean cooking gas, introducing Bharat Stage VI fuels, improved power plant regulations and investment in public transport are three winning medium-term solutions. A strategic and limited set of such solutions need aggressive action.
Let us not fool ourselves. North India’s air pollution will not improve substantially for at least a few years. The scale is too large, the pollution patterns too entrenched, and the enforcement challenges too deep. But this time frame of years will stretch to decades if we do not lay the groundwork now. Reactive, limited and short-term action taken in the panic of the winter smog won’t even put us on the path to a medium-term solution. We have to keep our eye on the ball, even when the air appears clear, and invest in the necessary long-term technological, institutional and political changes.
Navroz K Dubash is a Professor at the Centre for Policy Research. This is the third article in a monthly op-ed series in the Hindustan Times entitled ‘Clearing the Air.’ The original article, which was posted on April 4, 2019, can be found here.
Read more in the Clearing the Air series:
The Accountability Initiative (AI) at the Centre for Policy Research is delighted to share its PAISA for Panchayats report. This research extends AI’s PAISA methodology to track fund flows, and implementations processes at the rural local government level.
Watch the video above where TR Raghunandan, Advisor to AI, explains the motivation behind undertaking this research, the main findings and recommendations to the government, as well as AI’s plans to extend this work to other states in India.
This research focuses on understanding the state of fiscal devolution to rural local governments, and answers two key questions:
By analysing fund flows in 30 Gram Panchayats in Mulbagal taluk, Kolar district, Karnataka, this research shows that despite the state’s pioneering efforts in improving intergovernmental fiscal transfers, the system clearly falls short of Karnataka’s vision for effective devolution to Panchayats.
To read the report, click on the links:
Since 2010, the Accountability Initiative at the Centre for Policy Research has been tracking social sector spending in India in key programmes. Last month, it released four papers that tracked budget and fund flows in elementary education, public health and Panchayats. These included:
A detailed discussion on the implications of the 14th Finance Commission’s recommendations on social sector spending, and what should be the key research questions, going forward, followed. CPR president Pratap Bhanu Mehta moderated the discussion. The full video of the panel discussion can be viewed above.
Watch the full video (above) of the inaugural panel of CPR’s new series, Talking Rights Seriously, on ‘Informational Privacy in India: Aadhaar and Beyond’, featuring Meenakshi Arora, Dr Arghya Sengupta, Zoheb Hossain, Vrinda Bhandari and Ananth Padmanabhan.
The panel discussed the recent Supreme Court verdict on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and the scheme in general, and its implications for the right to informational privacy. The Aadhaar scheme, formally rolled out from 2011 to enrol citizens for the world’s largest digital identities project yet, has attracted considerable public debate and attention. The scheme’s journey through the past seven years places spotlight on various challenges faced when attempting to overcome governance chokepoints through technological means. Of these, the biggest challenge by far has been the rights challenge as no State initiative can bypass constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to achieve any social goal howsoever desirable. While upholding the fundamental character of the right to privacy in this regard and acknowledging the inherent tension between a datafied society and this all-important facet of human dignity, the Supreme Court in Puttaswamy (2017) also articulated a broad framework to think through and arrive at constitutionally permissible and impermissible tradeoffs. The Aadhaar verdict (2018) is the first real application of this framework and hence critical to India’s rights jurisprudence.
The panel brought together senior lawyers and experts who have contested and defended the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act before the Supreme Court, to share their insights on various aspects of this verdict pertaining to informational privacy.
Meenakshi Arora is a Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
Dr Arghya Sengupta is Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
Zoheb Hossain is an Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
Vrinda Bhandari is an Advocate, Supreme Court of India.
The session was moderated by Ananth Padmanabhan, Fellow, Technology & Society Initiative, CPR.
The question and answer session that followed can be accessed here.
About the Series
The Indian Supreme Court has been actively engaged of late with recognising the right to privacy including informational privacy as part of fundamental rights, laying down the contours of free speech and expression in the internet era while revisiting the law of sedition, adjudicating the constitutional validity of criminal laws that are vestiges of a long-gone Victorian era, sensitising personal laws and religious customs to the idea of gender equality and personal freedoms, and framing the scope and meaning of the right to life and personal dignity within the broader context of socio-economic rights that make life meaningful. Similarly, Parliament has begun playing a more active role in this rights discourse by cementing the position of socio-economic rights, hitherto considered part of the non-justiciable directive principles of state policy, within the firmament of statutorily enforceable rights.
With this background, the Centre for Policy Research is starting a new series, Talking Rights Seriously, conceptualised as a discussion platform to critically examine important judicial verdicts and legislative interventions addressing the theme of rights in India.
Watch the video (above) of an in-depth panel discussion on the concepts integral to the realisation of the Right to Education (RTE), drawing on international experience as well. The discussion focused on the socio-political context; the framing of the ‘rights’ debate; the role of non-state actors; the historical evolution of the RTE Act, and the legal issues surrounding its implementation in India. Experts from the Unites States and Colombia also shared their experiences, providing for cross-learning.
For a summary of the discussion, access the report here.
The dedicated event page can be visited here.
