Alarming expansion of urban centres at cost of the green cover with their concomitant extravaganza and wasteful consumption of natural resources are the new challenges the millennial society faces. Development cannot be “for” the privileged “at the cost” of the deprived who have as much right to better quality of life.
Noting that environment and society have many similarities, meeting the needs of over 1.2-billion people was a major challenge, as fruits of development including food, housing, healthcare, education, jobs and infrastructure, necessarily in the same order, have not reached even 70 percent of the rural Indian masses.
Majority of villages and urban areas stare at acute water crisis every summer. Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) being imposed on the backs of the commoners long back notwithstanding, millions remain jobless or underemployed. Almost 50 percent of the children are malnourished despite the implementation of numerous healthcare programmes under the National Rural Health Mission.
Sustainable strategies for implementing developmental projects are the only way forward for least adverse environmental impact sans hampering environment.
Projects for conservation of natural resources and environment planned without consulting their custodians and addressing problems of the people concerned may not yield fruitful results. Let alone social acceptance for their respective implementation.
Policy formulators, judiciary, executive and other stakeholders, including activists need to sit together and think for zeroing down to solutions viable in a democracy that India is.