MAKE OUR URBAN GREENS AND CITIES INVIOLATE AGAIN

NEW DELHI: By 2030, almost half the country’s population will be urban. What kind of cities will India offer us? Ambition isn’t in deficit — the Smart Cities Mission, creation of new cities like Amravati and upgradation — all these are underway. On the ground, frankly, urbanisation is quagmired in woozy myopia.

Take the examples of Bengaluru and Delhi. In Bengaluru, the lakes are burning again. The toxicity is haunting what was once touted as a green city as industrial chemicals and waste react violently in waters where they are cast away. In Delhi, sixteen thousand trees may be cut for redevelopment. The city simultaneously enveloped in dust, the world’s most polluted city even in the summer.

How can we avoid ruining our cities like this? It’s clear existing state institutions are inadequate safeguards, mandated now to speed environmental clearances. Apart from governance shifts, the way I see it, the notion of ‘the inviolate’ should be ushered back into governance. You simply cannot insult the environment. The Supreme Court tried imposing the inviolate in the late 1980s and 90s, but it was short-lived was because it never became part of the ethos of state decision-making. Re-educating officials about why the environment must be nurtured isn’t enough, giving them the confidence that they won’t be penalised if they nurture it, is important, as is recognition for the institution — history reminds us when we anoint heroes, change rarely outlasts them. All this will only work in a national framework that decrees that without environmental sustainability, India can’t progress.