Pollution extracts a heavy toll on the economy and on people’s health. Last year, 63 of the world’s 100 most air-polluted cities were in India. And a recent study by a US research group was an eye-opener. It claimed that all 1.3 billion residents of India live in areas where the “annual average particulate pollution level” exceeds the WHO safe limit.
At current levels, the average Indian life expectancy is shortened by five years.
According to a study published by The Lancet, pollution led to 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019, the highest in the world. Around 1.6 million of these were due to air pollution whereas 500,000 were caused by water pollution.
And against this backdrop, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change’s proposal to dilute the penal provisions in three laws dealing with pollution has triggered a debate.
According to the ministry, the idea is to decriminalise the provisions to remove fear of imprisonment for “simple” violations. The government plans to scrap the provision for imprisonment for the first default, which is currently up to five years, but raise the penalty from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, extended up to Rs 5 crore.
For repeat offence, the penalty amount would be equivalent to the damage caused. Imprisonment would follow if the defaulter failed to pay both the original and additional penalty
The amendment also proposes the creation of three funds which will be used for remittance to the affected parties.
Parth Kumar, Programme Manager, Industrial Pollution Unit, CSE, says, proposal will allow industries to avoid courts and closures. Big players will be beneficiaries, he says adding that we cannot completely decriminalise these acts.
According to Greenpeace, the economic cost of air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels is estimated to exceed $150 billion dollars annually. A 2013 World Bank report puts the total cost of environmental degradation in India at about $80 billion annually, with outdoor air pollution accounting for the highest share.
It is estimated that the health costs of water pollution in India amounted to about $6.7–8.7 billion per year.
Text on screen: Conservative estimates place the impact of air pollution on Indian businesses at $95 billion or ~3.3% of GDP
A major study by CII, Dalberg and Clean Air Fund Air conservatively also estimated the impact of air pollution on Indian businesses at $95 billion or 3% of the country’s GDP as a result of lost productivity due to absenteeism, reduced consumer footfall and premature mortalities.
The government’s proposal to amend the three laws comes in the backdrop of a NITI Aayog-funded study which estimated that from mid-2018 to mid-2021, the government lost revenue worth Rs 8,000 crore, the industry Rs 15,000 crore and workers around Rs 500 crore of income, due to five major enviroment-related judgements passed by the Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal.
The verdicts led to 16,000 job losses while adversely impacting 75,000 persons in total. The report recommended the need to equip judiciary well to balance economic and ecological interests of the country.
The judgments analysed in the study include cases relating to the shutting down Vedanta’s copper smelter in Tamil Nadu, stopping the construction of Mopa Airport in Goa and halting iron ore mining in the state.
Notably the conviction rate for violations under the three laws where changes are planned to be carried out has been low. While the number of cases reported under the three acts were 1,581 and 647, convictions were 42 and 25, respectively, in 2020 and 2019.
Speaking to Business Standard, Chandra Bhushan, CEO, iFOREST, says it is impossible to prosecute and jail over environmental degradation. Current laws don't have credible deterrence, he says. Change needed as such laws are civil in nature across the world.
Since it came to power in 2014, the National Democratic Alliance government has sought to establish itself as a business-friendly regime and one of the key means by which it has tried to fulfil this agenda is loosening environment protection laws. The criminalisation of environmental laws might not have worked and industry demands should not be dismissed out of hand, but, given the vast sums India loses due to the polluting of its natural resources, shouldn't protecting them really be considered an essential part of promoting overall growth?
 "Are changes in laws putting business interests ahead of the environment?")
