GDP growth mustn’t hurt environment: Expert

The path to economic recovery from the Covid-19 impact may be down a road that could put some strain on the environment. According to Dr Saswat Kishore Mishra from the Centre for Healthcare Management at the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), the economic jumpstart induced by a stark fall in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) can be achieved only at the cost of environment. The path towards economic recovery from Covid-19 must embrace sustainability at its core and redefine people-planet relationship, he said.

Dr Saswat was speaking after inaugurating an online conference organised by ASCI and the Centre for Innovations in Public Systems, ‘Health

Emergency and Disaster

Risk Management during Covid-19 Pandemic’ here on Saturday.

As many as 96 professionals from various fields including medicine, disaster management practitioners, public health consultants, government officials and scholars from different parts of the world took part in the webinar.

Dr Unni Krishnan, humanitarian director, War Child,

The Netherlands, said among the issues to be aware of when overcoming a situation such as the Covid-19 pandemic, was the ability of the current conditions to implant bitter memories resulting in emotional ripples that linger for a long time and can eclipse recovery efforts.

Dr Chandrakant Lahariya from the World Health Organisation pointed out that investing on a stronger health system is not only important for better health of people but also to ensure society being better prepared to respond to outbreaks and epidemics.

Dr Suresh Kumar Rathi from the Indian Institute of Public Health raised a concern that the pandemic has overshadowed other parallel disasters and suitable response requires a multi-hazard multi-sectoral approach.