DISHA: a blueprint for sustainable development in India

On 7 February, 2001 at the inauguration of the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit the Prime Minister of India released the DISHA (Directions, Innovations, and Strategies for Harnessing Action) publication produced by TERI which essentially evaluates alternative strategies for development right up to the year 2047, that is a hundred years after India attained independence. The justification for this comprehensive exercise came from the earlier major project completed by TERI in 1997 which evaluated the physical damage that has taken place to India's natural resources during the first 50 years of independence. Results of that work were startling, revealing the massive destruction that has taken place in our forests and biodiversity, and the extensive pollution that we see today in our air, water, and soil. When projected over the next 50 years the scenario for the future clearly indicated that India would be crisis bound if we do not bring about an immediate and major change in the model of development pursued in the country. DISHA represents an articulation of the strategies by which India could reach a pattern of sustainable development in the decades ahead. A particularly critical area that needs renewed attention is the nexus between population and human development. Rapid population increase would deal with not only the efforts at human development but would also place a heavy burden on the earth's natural resources. However, population stabilization will not come through legislative measures or diktats from the government. It can only come as a result of large-scale literacy, particularly for women and extensive healthcare for the entire population. A substantial improvement will also required to be made in environmental governance. In simple terms, environmental governance is the manner in which people exercise authority in our nature. The most effective way to ensure substantial management of natural resources is to empower communities that depend on these resources for their livelihood to exercise adequate power in decision-making. This clearly means that the current structure of centralized decision-making for regulation would need to be changed radically. Government should provide the enabling legislation and framework for environmental regulation, but regulatory bodies themselves should be actionable to the communities whose interests they are supposed to be protecting. Given the role of the private sector and the prospect of more and more economic activity being managed by corporate entities, it would be essential for the corporate sector to function and include ethic which displays greater responsibility to society and a higher level of attention to environmental protection. Many municipal services in the future, including solid waste collection and management would involve the private sector, and hence corporate organizations would also need to prepare themselves to provide environmental services as part of their corporate portfolio. Correspondingly, the system of environmental management in the country would also have to shift from a command and control approach to a greater use of market-based instruments. The results of such a shift would be a higher level of efficiency and better utilization of resources deployed for environmental protection. Perhaps, the greatest potential for mitigation of environmental damage and degradation of natural resources lies in the development and use of new technologies. It is in this regard, the government would have to develop a technology vision of the future and reorient the entire R&D programme in the country towards specified time-bound goals. Future transportation and even stationary generation of energy is likely to come from fuel cells, which are under development in several parts of the world. Fuel cells are efficient energy conversion devices, which produce literally no environmental damage, have no moving parts, and convert chemical energy into electricity at higher levels of efficiency. Similarly, biotechnology can provide methods by which crop yields can go up substantially even without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This would have significant environmental benefits. Technological developments in every sphere of activity hold the potential of lowering natural resource use and decreasing the footprint of human activities on the earth. It would be essential for the government to develop a focussed technology vision of the future and make its attainment a people's movement throughout the country. This apart from the other measures spelt out in the DISHA publication would represent the greatest hope for a sustainable.