lR;eso t;rs - Ministry of Environment and Forests

y receding of glaciers and dwindling fresh water resources.
Population stress, irrigation requirements and industrialization
are the major pressures for water insecurity.
The environmental challenges of water resource development
and management in India are expected to manifest themselves
more explicitly and rapidly in the coming years. These
environmental challenges may be addressed through four broad
approaches:
�Improving efficiencies and minimizing losses
�Recharging groundwater aquifers
�Abatement and treatment of water pollution
�Reuse and recycling of wastewater
Energy Security
India is a developing country facing the critical challenge of
meeting its rapidly increasing demand for energy. With over a
billion people, India ranks sixth in the world in terms of energy
demands. India’s economy is projected to grow seven to eight per
cent over the next two decades, spurring a substantial increase in
demand for oil to fuel land, sea, and air transportation. While
India has significant reserves of coal, it is relatively poor in oil
and gas resources. India’s oil reserves amount to 0.5 per cent of
the global reserves.
In recent years, India's energy consumption has been increasing
at one of the fastest rates in the world owing to population growth
and economic development.
In the recent years, the Government of India has recognized the
energy security concerns and more importance is being placed on
energy independence. Some of the strategies for energy security
are as follows:
�Power Generation Strategy will focus on low cost generation,
optimization of capacity utilization, controlling the input
cost, optimization of fuel mix, Technology upgradation and
utilization of non-conventional energy sources.
�Transmission strategy will focus on development of National
Grid including Inter-state connections, technology
upgradation and optimization of transmission cost.
�Distribution strategy (to achieve distribution reforms) will
focus on system upgradation, loss reduction, theft control,
consumer service orientation, quality power supply
commercialization, decentralized distributed generation and
supply for rural areas.
�Conservation strategy (to optimize the utilization of
electricity) will focus on demand side management, load
management and technology upgradation to provide energy
efficient equipment / gadgets.
Managing Urbanization
Due to an uncontrolled urbanization in India, environmental
degradation has been occurring very rapidly and causing
shortages of housing, worsening of water quality, excessive air
pollution, noise, dust and heat, and the problems of disposal of
solid wastes and hazardous wastes. The situation in metropolises
like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi and Bangalore, is
becoming worse year by year. Some of the strategies to manage
urbanization are as follows:
�Redirection of migration flow is required. Since the mega
cities have reached the saturation level for employment
generation and to avoid over-crowding into the over
congested slums of mega cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi
and Chennai, there is a dire need to build a strong economic
sector (Kundu and Basu, 1998) in the urban economy. Growth
efforts and investments should be directed towards small
cities which have been neglected so far so that functional base
of urban economy is strengthened. Then, the redirection of
migration to this desirable destination will be possible.
�Policy should also relate to proper urban planning where cityplanning
will consist of operational, developmental and
restorative planning.
Section – IV provides the Policy and Institutional Options to
cater the emerging environmental challenges. To address these
challenges, it is essential to focus on diverse response options and
instruments for possible solutions. Emphasis must be placed on
increasing stakeholders responsibility and accountability and
promoting more cooperative efforts for ensuring a healthy
environment.
Spreading awareness and empowering people to take decisions,
at the local level, is an effective way of dealing with the
environmental problems of India. Their decisions will enable
initiatives that will benefit them as well as the local environment.
It has been seen that solutions always emerge whenever
governments involve people, using a participatory approach to
solve problems.
Community-based natural resource management initiatives,
coupled with policy reforms, can prove to be an effective
mechanism for improving access to, and improving productivity
of, natural resources. The success of joint forest management and
irrigation user groups in India, provide enough evidence that
social capital and participatory processes are as crucial to
environmental protection as financial resources and
development programmes.
Section – V provides the list of annexures.