Policies and Measures Taken

While India faces many environmental challenges, the environmental sustainability of India is in good hands due to the efforts put in by the government and the people. The Greendex Study is a survey to rank the environmental sustainability of 14 developing countries. In these 14 countries, India has surfaced as the first over the past 4 years. This survey reasons that countries with worse environmental conditions tend to feel more conscious about their actions, adopting more sustainable behaviour, leading to a sustainable environment. Compared to China that is also dealing with similar environmental issues, India is fairing comparatively better, as shown in the 2005 Environmental Sustainability where India ranks 101 out of all 146 countries, while China was ranked 133. Hence, it can be seen that policies put in place to improve the environmental sustainability have been more effective as compared to other developing countries with similar constraints and concerns.

National Environment Policy 2006
The National Environment Policy was implemented in 2006 with aims to protect and conserve critical ecological systems and resources, to ensure equitable access to environmental resources and quality for all sections of society, to ensure judicious use of environmental resources to meet the needs and aspirations of the present and future generations, to integrate environmental concerns into policies, plans, programmes, and projects for economic and social development, to ensure efficient use of environmental resources to minimize adverse environmental impacts, to apply the principles of good governance to the management and regulation of use of environmental resources and to ensure higher resource flows. As India has a large land area that would prove to be difficult to effectively and efficiently manage, the local and state governments are encouraged to formulate their own plans and strategies to ensure environmental sustainability with the above goals in mind (Government of India Ministry of Environment and Forrests, 2006).

a) Regulatory reforms

The past regulatory framework for environmental sustainability consisted of a legislative framework, as well as a set of regulatory institutions. However, it was inadequate and resulted in fast environmental degradation. This policy initiates the institutionalization of a holistic and integrated approach to the management of environmental and natural resources through explicitly identifying and integrating environmental concerns in relevant sectoral and cross-sectoral policies. This is done through reviews and consultations, effectively identify areas in need of new legislation, due to better scientific understanding, economic and social development, and development of multilateral environmental regimes (Government of India Ministry of Environments and Forests, 2006).

b) Substantive reforms

i) Environmental Impact Assessment
The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) will continue to be adopted as the standardized methodology for appraising and reviewing of new projects. This way, all new ventures will have to be passed through stringent checks to ensure that the activities carried out will not cause great negative impacts on the environment of India. For this to take place, the regional and cumulativeenvironmental impact assessments (R/CEIAs) will be institutionalized to ensure that all states have a clear understanding of environmental concerns right at the start. The quality and productivity of lands which are proposed to be converted for development activities will also be determined beforehand to simplify the decision making process. The diversion of dense natural forests and areas of high endemism of genetic resources, to non-forest purposes, will not be allowed unless it is of vital national interest (Government of India Ministry of Environment and Forests, 2006).

ii) Conservation of Land
In order to minimize the effects of land degradation, the government is embarking on the path of enhancing and conserving land. This is done through encouragement of adoption of science-based as well as traditional sustainable land use practices, through research and development, extension of knowledge, pilot scale demonstrations, and large scale dissemination, including farmer's training, and where necessary, access to institutional finance. The reclamation of wasteland and degraded forestland through formulation and adoption of multi stakeholder partnerships will also be promoted (Government of India, 2007). In order to reduce the number of times the same plot of land is used for different purposes so that it will have a period of rest time for recovery, the government is also actively trying to extend irrigation and green coverage by making use of desert areas. If this proves to be successful in years to come, India would have a huge increase in useable land area as it is home to the 7th largest desert in the world, the Thar desert as well as the Kutch desert.

c) Pollution abatement

i) Air pollution
In order to adequately control air pollution in India and hopefully better the situation, the policy proposes that the government take an integrated approach to energy conservation and adoption of renewable energy technologies by improving conversion, transmission, distribution, andend-use efficiency. In order to achieve this goal, policy, legal, and other regulatory barriers to setting up decentralized generation and distribution systems for power based on local primary energy resource need to be removed (N.A., 2006). The monitoring and enforcement of emission standards for all sources of pollution need to be strictly met with no exceptions given regardless of organization. As a contributor to air pollution is also the growing transport system caused by the growing population, a national strategy for urban transport will also be formulated to ensure investment in low-pollution mass transport systems.

ii) Water pollution
Water pollution is also an important issue that needs to be addressed in order to better the environmental sustainability of India in general as water is an important resource both for life and for industrial purposes. In order to improve the quality of water, the government plans to develop and implement public-private partnership models for setting up and operating effluent and sewagetreatment plants. The government will also be promoting the research and development of low cost technologies for sewage treatment so as to make this process more affordable. When the above two ideas are combined, they will then allow industries to understand the possible methods to reduce their toxic waste production and engage in such activities. Incentives that are provided for companies taking part in the activities will further lower the cost of waste treatment and hence making it more affordable and attractive to lower-earning industries. Also it has not been specified, measure will also be taken to prevent the pollution of water bodies from other sources such as waste disposal areas on land.

Since the above policies put in place to better the environment sustainability of India are still relatively new and the impacts have not really surfaced, it is hard to tell if they will be beneficial for India. However, looking at other countries that were once dealing with environmental issues such as Thailand and adopted similar policies, these policies are potentially beneficial to India. However, as India is dealing with many issues such as poverty and the need to improve healthcare concurrently, the government needs to ensure that enough funding is channeled into the above policies and that there is enough manpower to effectively carry them out throughout India for them to work.