📰 Govt. to survey water availability in 500 cities
MoHUA to review state of water bodies and supply across country in 2022
•A survey on household water supply and condition of water bodies in 500 cities will be carried out in 2022, senior officials of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry (MoHUA) said.
•As a part of the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 1, water balance plans would be created for all cities.
•The survey — Pey Jal Survekshan — would be carried out in 500 cities with a population of above 1 lakh each, which were covered under the first iteration of AMRUT, said D. Thara, joint secretary in the MoHUA and AMRUT mission director. Ms. Thara said on Monday that the survey would be started “next year”.
•According to a MoHUA statement on October 1, AMRUT 2.0 aims to make all the around 4,700 towns and cities in the country “water secure”, while AMRUT covered 500 cities only. City water balance plans for each city, covering reuse of treated water, rejuvenation of water bodies and conservation, would be drawn up.
•“Pey Jal Survekshan will be conducted in cities to ascertain equitable distribution of water, reuse of wastewater and mapping of water bodies w.r.t. quantity and quality of water through a challenge process,” the statement read.
•According to officials, a pilot survey was carried out in eight cities — Patiala, Churu, Agra, Rohtak, Bhubaneswar, Surat, Badlapur and Tumkur — earlier this year. Two other cities selected for the survey — Kochi and Madurai — could not be covered due to Assembly elections in the states and the outbreak of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said.
•The survey, which was based on citizens’ responses, showed that satisfaction with the quality and quantity of water was subjective, an official said. The questionnaire for the expanded survey had been re-cast based on the experience of the pilot, the official said.
No prior nod will be needed for security, border infra projects under changes to Forest Conservation Act
•The government has proposed absolving agencies involved in national security projects and border infrastructure projects from obtaining prior forest clearance from the Centre as part of amendments to the existing Forest Conservation Act (FCA). The FCA that first came in 1980 and was amended in 1988, requires such permission.
•The proposed amendment is part of a larger rationalising of existing forest laws, the government has said. The document is open to public discussion for 15 days after which it could be readied for Cabinet and Parliamentary approval.
•There is also a plan in the document that is now available on the MoEF website, to exempt land acquired before 1980 — before the FCA came into effect — by public sector bodies such as the Railways. Currently, the document notes, there was “strong resentment” among several ministries on how the Act was being interpreted over the right of way of railways, highways.
•As of today a landholding agency (Rail, NHAI, PWD, etc) is required to take approval under the Act as well as pay stipulated compensatory levies such as Net Present Value (NPV), Compensatory Afforestation (CA), etc. for use of such land which was originally been acquired for non-forest purposes.
Wide-ranging changes
•The Environment Ministry also proposes adding a clause to make punishments under the modified Act punishable with simple imprisonment for a period which may extend to one year and make it cognisable and non-bailable. They also propose provisions for penal compensation to make good for the damages already done to trees in forest land.
•The document also proposes removing zoos, safaris, Forest Training infrastructures from the definition of “non-forestry” activities. The current definition restricts the way money collected as part of compensatory cess can be spent towards forest conservation purposes.
•Previous attempts to amend acts linked to forest laws have been controversial.
•There was a plan to amend the Indian Forest Act, 1927, that deals with the rights of forest dwellers, in an attempt to address contemporary challenges to the country’s forests. The draft law had been sent to key forest officers in the States for soliciting comments and objections.
•It drew flak from activists as well as tribal welfare organisations. The government withdrew the draft and has said that a newer updated version was on the anvil.
📰 Adopt proven solutions over smog towers
Proven solutions rooted in science, not unproven technological fixes, will reduce air pollution
•Two new smog towers have been recently inaugurated in Delhi. Bengaluru and Chandigarh also installed smog towers this year. Mumbai’s clean air plan indicates a financial requirement of ₹25 crore for installing air filtration units at major traffic intersections in the city. While these efforts indicate that governments are taking cognisance of air pollution, the deployments are often driven by symbolism rather than science. For example, the Delhi government claims that the newly installed smog tower in Connaught Place could reduce air pollution levels by 80%. But there is no scientific evidence of smog towers or any other outdoor air filtration units improving air quality in cities. The smog tower installed in China’s Xi’an and another one installed in Beijing did not prove to be effective and were not scaled up.
•Smog towers create an illusion of progress towards clean air while diverting crores of public money away from proven solutions. Moreover, they misdirect policymakers and citizens by deflecting attention from areas that call for urgent action. Therefore, governments looking at investing in outdoor filtration systems should defer their deployment plans.
•Further, the data on the effectiveness of the newly installed smog towers should be made available publicly for independent evaluation. Until there is scientific consensus on their effectiveness, every new tower installed is just a violation of taxpayers’ money and citizens’ trust.
What we can do
•Meanwhile, governments must ramp up investments in proven solutions to reduce air pollution. First, policymakers should expand air pollution monitoring in areas with limited or no air quality monitoring and strengthen forecasting capacity across cities. Of the 132 cities in the country that currently don’t meet the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 75 do not have a single real-time monitoring station. For areas with no monitoring infrastructure, alternatives like low-cost air quality monitors in combination with satellite observations should be explored to plug the existing data gaps. Simultaneously, cities should strengthen their air quality forecasting systems by collaborating with scientific institutions that are transparent about their approach and findings. These forecasts should be used in rolling out preventive measures such as travel restrictions, pausing commercial activities or encouraging working from home, on anticipated high pollution days.
•Second, city-level emission inventories must be updated periodically. Until last year, over 75% of our city clean air plans did not contain vital information on emissions from different polluting sources. These data are critical to identify key sources of air pollution and design effective clean air plans as per the local context. While several academic institutions carry out emission inventory and source apportionment studies, these studies should not become a one-time exercise.
•Third, targeted efforts must be made to improve air quality for urban slum dwellers who have no access to clean cooking energy. In a recent study, we found that nearly half the urban slum households in six States still rely on biomass and other polluting fuels for their cooking needs. Also, household emissions increase during winter, especially when fuel requirement for non-cooking tasks like space heating increases. This increases exposure to indoor air pollution and poses health risks. Hence, policymakers must focus on providing LPG connections to these households along with ensuring sustained usage of LPG as the primary fuel.
•Finally, and most importantly, cities should strengthen their enforcement capacity by investing in people and systems that can keep a round-the-clock watch on both egregious and episodic polluters. India is witnessing a rising democratic demand for clean air. But this cannot be met by unproven technological fixes. Instead, we must vigorously pursue solutions that are rooted in science to bring back blue skies.
📰 Cities are taking climate action
Climate resilience plans in Indian cities focus on isolated risks rather than preparing for multiple, intersecting risks
•On September 23, Maharashtra’s Environment Minister, Aaditya Thackeray, announced that 43 cities across the State will join the UN-backed ‘Race to Zero’ global campaign, which aims to create jobs while meeting goals of climate change and sustainable development. This is laudable and timely – Maharashtra has repeatedly been identified as a State that experiences multiple risks (floods, drought, sea-level rise to name a few) and reports abysmally inadequate policy action on climate-resilient development.
Are cities doing enough?
•Indian cities have often been singled out for not doing enough on climate change. To examine this, we assessed climate action in 53 Indian cities with a population of over one million and found, promisingly, that approximately half these cities report climate plans, i.e., they have a climate resilience plan or set of projects in place. Of these, 18 cities have moved beyond intention to implementation. These numbers highlight an encouraging first step, signalling that recurrent experiences of floods, water scarcity, cyclones and storm surges are filtering up into urban development policy.
•However, a lot of interventions are being implemented through sectoral projects focusing on particular, isolated risks. For example, most cities report targeted projects to deal with heat waves and water scarcity, followed by inland flooding, extreme rainfall, and growing disease incidence. Coastal flooding, sea-level rise, and cyclones are discussed less often despite India’s long coastline and highly vulnerable coastal cities and infrastructure. This focus tends to overlook how multiple risks converge and reinforce each other — for example, seasonal cycles of flooding and water scarcity in Chennai.
•Importantly, solutions exist and many of them can simultaneously meet climate action and sustainable development goals. Front-runners in this space have been cities such as Ahmedabad, which has had a Heat Action Plan (HAP) since 2010, its success evident from reduced heat mortality. The HAP involves key government departments, NGOs, researchers and citizens and focuses on high-risk social groups like wage labourers, low-income groups, women and the elderly. Combining infrastructural interventions (for example, painting roofs white) and behavioural aspects (building public awareness on managing heat), the model has now been scaled up to 17 cities across the country.
•Nature-based solutions such as mangrove restoration in coastal Tamil Nadu and urban wetland management in Bengaluru have demonstrated how restoring ecosystem health can sustain human systems as well. For example, urban parks provide cooling benefits and wetlands regulate urban floods.
Bottlenecks and ways forward
•Many have identified how inadequate finances and political will at city scales constrain developing sustainable Indian cities. However, what is less discussed is inadequate institutional capacity in existing government departments to reorient ways of working. This would entail moving away from looking at risks in isolation and planning for multiple, intersecting risks. This would mean transforming the ways our cities operate and expand. Undertaking long-term planning needs resilience planners in every line department as well as communication channels across departments to enable vertical and horizontal knowledge sharing.
•Another key aspect inherent in transforming cities is focusing on changing behaviours and lifestyles. This is tougher and less understood because the norms we adhere to, the values we cherish, and the systems we are familiar with tend to stymie change. One emerging example of slow but steady behavioural change is bottom-up sustainable practices such as urban farming where citizens are interpreting sustainability at a local and personal scale. This can mean growing one’s own food on terraces and simultaneously enhancing local biodiversity; composting organic waste and reducing landfill pressure; sharing farm produce with a neighbour, bringing communities closer and creating awareness about food growing.
•India is becoming increasingly urban. Its cities or city-like villages are sites where the twin challenges of climate change and inclusive development will be won or lost. Pledges like Maharashtra’s are a welcome addition to ongoing climate plans. It remains to be seen how they translate into action. While gloom and doom dominate climate reportage, a range of solutions with co-benefits for climate action and development exists. How to leverage these solutions and equip our city planners and citizens to implement them is what we should focus on.
📰 An alphabet soup New Delhi needs to sift through
India needs to reconsider the plethora of alliances it is in and rationalise them after a reality check
•The current ruckus over AUKUS — the trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, which was announced on September 15, 2021 — has revealed the hazards of group diplomacy, which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had anticipated when President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh proposed a regional organisation for South Asia.
The SAARC years
•Apart from its reservations about the reference to security in the draft charter for SAARC, or the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, India was in a dilemma — that not joining the forum would look as though India was against regional cooperation. And if it joined, it faced the possibility of its neighbours ganging up and using the SAARC institutions to pressure India on various regional issues. One other concern was that the proposer of such a group would be suspected of aspiring to the leadership of a region.
•On balance, India joined the Association with a number of conditionalities such as the exclusion of bilateral issues, decision-making by voting, and holding of meetings without all members being present. But despite the imperative for cooperation in vital fields, SAARC became an arena for India bashing, particularly by Pakistan. It was bilateral diplomacy in the guise of multilateralism and it became moribund as India did not attend the last summit. SAARC became a liability as it was clear that the region was not mature enough to have a regional instrumentality.
•Today, the world has a whole spectrum of groups — from the European Union at one end to the African Union at the other — with varying shades of cooperation. Groups with acronyms such as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and numerical groups from a notional G-2 to a real G-77 which has more than a 100 members, exist.
•Many of them do not have regional, ideological or thematic homogeneity to lend them a reason for forming a group. The time, the money and the energy spent on convening not only summits but also a whole paraphernalia of ministerial, official and expert level meetings do not seem justified. Bureaucracies, with United Nations salaries and perks, grow around these bodies, developing vested interests to perpetuate them. Such groups which do not have “sunset” clauses continue even after they diminish in importance
Searching for an agenda
•Finding the agenda for these organisations and groups is another difficult exercise. The growing agenda of the United Nations includes everything from peace on earth to celestial bodies and even UFOs. When India decided to remain in the Commonwealth even as an independent country, the nature of the affinity to the British Crown changed and its agenda expanded beyond the concerns of the former British colonies. The only way it could survive, after Zimbabwe became independent and apartheid disappeared in South Africa, was by duplicating the agenda of the United Nations and repeating pronouncements of member-states made in other organisations. The role of the Commonwealth was reviewed, but the members reached the conclusion that it had continuing relevance.
•The rationale of some of the other new groups was unclear even when they were formed. A Goldman Sachs economist found similarities among fast growing economies such as China, Russia, India and Brazil and recommended massive western investments in these countries. The countries concerned formed an intergovernmental group called BRIC and later BRICS, with South Africa added as a representative of the African continent. At that time, it was feared that, with the presence of China and Russia in it, it would be construed as an anti-American group. As expected. China quickly assumed the leadership of BRICS and tried to seek changes in the international economic system by establishing a bank, with the possibility of credit for its members. The result of this development was undermining the relevance of another, less ambitious, group of India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA), which had several common interests. As candidates for permanent membership of the Security Council, they had specific ideas on UN reform and on South-South cooperation.
On Afghanistan
•The recent BRICS summit had Afghanistan on its agenda and the diverse group was able to reach a conclusion only with different caveats. Russia and China were more sympathetic to the Taliban than the others. At the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, delegations found some common elements of concern with dramatically different approaches. The SCO started off as a friendly group of China and some of the former Republics of the Soviet Union, but with the addition of India, Pakistan and Iran, it became a diverse group and it could not reach agreement. Pakistan naturally sounded triumphant, but even Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan could not gloat over the unshackling of the Taliban in the face of a looming humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan. Whether the Chinese presence in these summits and the meetings between Wang Yi and S. Jaishankar (the Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister and India’s External Affairs Minister, respectively) made any difference to the stand-off in Ladakh is yet to be seen. But we know that frequent meetings with the leaders of China do not necessarily mean a meeting of minds as Beijing’s trajectory of thoughts and actions are highly unpredictable. Those who saw China’s President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in conversation in Mamallapuram (near Chennai), at the second informal summit between India and China, in October 2019, would never have thought that they would ever be in an armed conflict.
India and other groupings
•India has also had experience of taking initiatives to encourage groups without the participation of Pakistan, knowing well that Pakistan’s presence is a sure recipe for trouble. One of them is the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), an international organisation of seven South Asian and Southeast Asian nations which are dependent on the Bay of Bengal: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. The group remained dormant for many years till it was revived a few years ago as an alternative to SAARC. Though it has an ambitious agenda for sectoral cooperation, it has not gained much momentum.
•Another group which India has championed is the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). The organisation was first established as the Indian Ocean Rim Initiative in Mauritius in March 1995 and formally launched on March 6-7 1997 (then known as the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Co-operation). It also drags on without any significant progress.
•On the other hand, the two active groups, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), have eluded us even though we have major stakes in them. We campaigned actively for membership of these two bodies, but gave up when we made no headway. In the process of working with the U.S. on a bouquet of groups such as Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), NSG, the Wassenaar Arrangement and the Australia Group, we ended up with membership of Wassenaar and the Australia Group, in which we were not interested.
The Quad and AUKUS
•The Quad had a chequered history of India flirting with it for years till the Chinese threat became real in 2020, but New Delhi’s reluctance to call a spade a spade has driven the U.S. to new alliances such as a second Quad and then AUKUS as the U.S. wanted to fortify itself with allies against China. But the reaction of France to AUKUS has raised the issue of loyalty among allies even though AUKUS has made it clear that it was meant only to enable the U.S. to transfer nuclear propelled submarine technology to Australia.
•The proliferation of alliances and groups will be a matter of close scrutiny by many countries in the light of the new trend initiated by the U.S. Collective bargaining is the strength of group diplomacy but it cannot be effective without commitment to a common cause. It stands to reason that India should also reconsider the plethora of groups we are in and rationalise them after a reality check.
📰 Taproots to help restore India’s fading green cover
In forest restoration, the participation of local communities and adequate financing and incentives are essential
•Covering nearly 30% land surface of the earth, forests around the globe provide a wide variety of ecosystem services and support countless and diverse species. They also stabilise the climate, sequester carbon and regulate the water regime. The State of the World’s Forests report 2020, says that since 1990, around 420 million hectares of forest have been lost through deforestation, conversion and land degradation. Nearly 178 million hectares have decreased globally due to deforestation (1990-2020). India lost 4.69 MHA of its forests for various land uses between 1951 to 1995.
•Despite various international conventions and national policies in place to improve green cover, there is a decline in global forest cover. This is the prime reason for forest restoration activities including tree planting to become increasingly popular and declaring 2021-2030 as the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration for improving environmental conditions and enhancing human communities.
•Restoration in laymen’s terms is bringing back the degraded or deforested landscape to its original state by various interventions to enable them to deliver all the benefits. Building and maintaining activities help to improve ecological functions, productivity and create resilient forests with multifarious capabilities. India’s varied edaphic, climatic and topographic conditions are spread over 10 bio-geographical regions and four biodiversity hotspots, sheltering 8% of the world’s known flora and fauna.
•However, dependence on forests by nearly 18% of the global human population has put immense pressure on ecosystems; in India, this has resulted in the degradation of 41% of its forests. To combat this, India joined the Bonn Challenge with a pledge to restore 21 MHA of degraded and deforested land which was later revised to 26 MHA to be restored by 2030. The first-ever country progress report under the Bonn Challenge submitted by India by bringing 9.8 million hectares since 2011 under restoration is an achievement. However, continued degradation and deforestation need to be tackled effectively to achieve the remaining target of restoration by addressing various challenges.
Key challenges
•Local ecology with a research base: forest restoration and tree planting are leading strategies to fight global warming by way of carbon sequestration. However, planting without considering the local ecology can result in more damage. Similarly, planting a forest in the wrong places such as savannah grasslands could be disastrous for local biodiversity. Luckily recent research has shown that naturally regenerated forests tend to have more secure carbon storage. Being less tech-sensitive, cost-effective and conserving more biodiversity, natural forest restoration is becoming more widely accepted. However, it is fundamental to consider the local ecology before implementing any restoration efforts to retain their biodiversity and ecosystem functions.
•Restoration, being a scientific activity, needs research support for its success. Whether one goes for active restoration which includes planting or passive restoration with more focus on halting environmental stressors or adopting an intermediate approach of aided natural regeneration, it needs critical examination before putting restoration interventions into practice.
Situation in India
•Nearly 5.03% of Indian forests are under protection area (PA) management needing specific restoration strategies. The remaining areas witness a range of disturbances including grazing, encroachment, fire, and climate change impacts that need area-specific considerations. Further, much of the research done so far on restoration is not fully compatible with India’s diverse ecological habitats hence warranting due consideration of local factors. So, the relevance of local research duly considering ecological aspects, local disturbances and forest-dependent communities is vital to formulate guidelines for locally suitable interventions and to meet India’s global commitment.
•Though India’s increasing economic growth is helping to eliminate poverty, there is continued degradation and a growing scarcity of natural resources. The intricate link between poverty and environmental degradation was first highlighted by India at the first UN global conference on the human environment in Stockholm. Out of its 21.9% population living under the poverty line, nearly 275 million people including local tribals depend on the forest for subsistence.
Fundamental to the strategy
•Further, encroachment of nearly 1.48 MHA of forest and grazing in nearly 75% of forest area is also linked to the livelihood of local communities. Linked with the degradation of forests, this dependency, along with various social-political and economic factors, complicates the issue manifold. The participation of local communities with finances for incentives and rewards is essential to redress this complex riddle.
•There have been remarkable initiatives to involve local people in the protection and development of forests by forming joint forest management committees (JFMC). More than 1,18,213 JFMCs involving around 20 million people manage over 25 MHA of forest area.
•However, a review of their functionality and performance is essential to make them more dynamic and effective to scale up their involvement.
•Therefore, negotiations with a wide range of stakeholders including these committees for resolving conflicts and fulfilling restoration objectives are a must and a challenging feat to reach a suitable trade-off.
•Adequate financing is one of the major concerns for the success of any interventions including restoration. The active approach of restoration which includes tree planting and the involvement of communities seeks incentives and rewards and make the whole affair quite cost-intensive. The contribution of corporates in restoration efforts so far has been limited to 2% of the total achievement. Hence, alternate ways of financing such as involving corporates and dovetailing restoration activities with ongoing land-based programmes of various departments can help to make it easy for operation.
•Apart from these specific challenges, the common barriers to restoration as identified globally also need critical review before placing the required methodologies and area-specific strategies in place. The involvement of multiple stakeholders in forest restoration is bound to cause a conflict of interests among different stakeholders; along with low priority and insufficient funding, it becomes even more challenging.
•Active engagement of stakeholders including non-governmental organisations, awareness and capacity building of stakeholders with enabling policy interventions and finance can help a lot to achieve the remaining 16 MHA restoration objectives for India. The need of the hour is an inclusive approach encompassing these concerns with the required wherewithal.
