Caught between growth and green

The eternal debate on growth versus environment, often faced by developing economies, ran through the Economic Survey 2010-11. The survey has called for setting up of forest land bank to fast track forest clearances.

It said development should not be without environment considerations, but cautioned that green growth strategies should not result in slow growth. “Careful planning and customised policies are needed to ensure that green growth strategies do not result in a slow growth strategy,” it said.

On infrastructure development, it said land acquisitions and slow approval processes, especially environment and forest clearances, were some of the non-financing constraints that needed to be addressed to avoid cost overruns. It said there was an “urgent need to streamline land acquisition and environment clearance for infrastructure projects.” The survey also called for creating a National Forest Land bank, which “could reduce the approval time for forest clearances.”

“There is a strong case for bringing in parity between the compensation package admissible under the Land Acquisition Act, 1894, and that applicable to land acquisition under the National Highways Act, 1956, to enable faster acquisition.” “With large agrarian population, India is vulnerable to changes in weather parameters,” it said. “The increasing importance of climate-related issues should not shake the foundations of our inclusive green growth strategy.”

THE GREEN CHANNEL PROJECTS APPRAISED DURING APRIL-NOVEMBER 2010
Nature of project	Cleared		Pending		Rejected/  Returned/ Withdrawn
	EC	TOR	EC	TOR
Thermal power	32	71	23	90	33
Hydro-electric	7	24	10	10	1
Mining	72	152	80	153	40
Infra & Ind estate	125	58	105	58	0
Nuclear	1	1	0	3	3
Industry	150	288	104	172	85
Total	387	594	322	486	162
EC= Environmental Clearance TOR= Terms of Reference (First phase of getting environmental clearance)