New Delhi: India's economic boom story shows no signs of ending and a new World Bank report on the environmental impact of industrial growth suggests that we may soon be worse off than China.
"In the next 15-20 years, India might have the highest of density of economic activity per square kilometre," says lead environmental economist of World Bank, Kseniya Lvovsky.
The report also says that it isn't always big industry that's at fault. Infact, small and medium enterprises account for as much as 70 per cent of industrial pollution and that needs to be the focus area for regulators.
The Government's vehicle of choice for industrial growth is the Special Economic Zones and the World Bank report is silent on them. When asked, there was some good news — a well-planned SEZ could actually be good, environmentally speaking that is.
"It will be easier for environmental management, more from the compliance point of view. It will be easier to also have a common environment infrastructure," says environmental specialist at World Bank, Sanjay Srivastava.
For a country where the judiciary has stepped in as regulators have failed, the message from the report, co-sponsored by various Indian ministries, is that regulators need to step and be counted.
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