Development vs Environment

Development or Environment - Which is more important?

The Indian economy has grown at a tremendous pace over the last two decades. The 1991 reforms led to transformation of the Indian economy leading to growth accompanied by fast paced construction. There has also been large scale migration of rural population to cities leading to newer settlements. While it is only natural that the change has helped the rising population in improving their quality of life, it has led to compromise in the natural habitat of animals as they have been displaced from many a places where high rise buildings have come up.

Even though development and growth have always been vital to people, dramatic changes in the climate as well as its impact on the environment have made a sea change in the perception of development in the recent years.

Activists as well as environmentalists have started actively supporting a number of cases which involve either residential construction or a new plant built by reputed industrial house that would lead to displacement of native population as well as destruction of flora and fauna.

The former environment Minister Jairam Ramesh brought the focus back on environment at a time when the country was largely delving into fulfilling the mineral needs of the country. A great need was felt to ensure that as much as development was essential, environment could not be ignored and in fact, it had to be taken into consideration for holistic growth of the country. Also, there have been active discussions on replacing the Gross Domestic Product with Green GDP.

Cities such as Gurgaon, Bangalore, Pune amongst others have witnessed stupendous development activity over the last few years. With large multinationals setting up offices in them, large number of people have moved into them leading to fast erosion of green cover for development activity. Not only the government, even citizens in the cities are now trying to conserve environment through various ways in these cities.

The catastrophic consequences of environment degradation for achieving growth rapidly have been largely visible as the number of floods as well as torrential rains has only increased.

Environmental balance has been one of the primary reasons why sustainability has been maintained for thousands of years. If development is achieved at the cost of spoiling environment, then development loses its sheen. The second fastest growing country in the world will need to ensure that its environment security is not compromised while its growth story remains intact.