A need to balance interests Economic liberalisation is about relaxing excessive regulations on economic activity, and this has been going on in India since the mid-1980s. But excessive regulations constitute only one of the many constraints on economic development; the other constraints include physical infrastructure, education and skills, various institutional practices and organisations.
Some people in the business sector consider environmental regulations as excessive for industrial and commercial development in India. I do not necessarily agree with them. It varies from case to case. In some cases, environmental regulations are unnecessarily cumbersome and time consuming, but in many others, we have too few regulations (for example, those relating to air and water pollution, traffic congestion, deforestation, irrigation and water conservation), and even those that exist are badly enforced.
We have a long history of ignoring the environmental consequences altogether in many decades of development, and many regulations are of recent origin. One should keep in mind that there are exemplary middle-income developing countries where environmental regulations and economic development are proceeding smoothly together. Costa Rica, for example, is a country that has the best environmental record in the whole of America, north and south taken together.
It also depends on the idea of economic development one has in mind. Those who are preoccupied with maximising the rate of economic growth of GDP (gross domestic product) often consider environmental regulations as mere encumbrances. But a wider concept of development includes better quality of life that an un- degraded environment allows and when displacements of poor people whose daily livelihoods depend on the environmental resources are kept at a minimum. If one follows this wider concept of development, taking care of environment becomes part of the development process.
Even in areas where there are trade-offs between developmental and environmental considerations what is most in need is a sense of balance. Many of the controversial issues of the day involve complex trade-offs and balancing of diverse interests, which neither the corporate lobbies nor the non-profits pay enough attention to.
Even those who speak in the name of the poor usually under-stress the diversity among the poor—a dam may benefit thousands of small farmers in hitherto dry land, while displacing thousands of others, just like a development project may displace some from their ancestral land, but provide jobs and more productive livelihood to others.
It is possible that after careful balancing of the gains and losses (both economic and social) one may still conclude that the dam should not be constructed or the development project should not be undertaken. But this should be the outcome of a transparent deliberative process where diverse interests and stakeholders are represented.
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