Industry and environment the case of Gujarat

Abstract

Industrialisation plays an important role in the economic development of a country. Though industrialisation is a pre-requisite for economic growth, pollution seems to be the inevitable price paid for this development. Environmental losses once made are difficult to restore. The attention thus needs to be focussed not only on economic growth and industrial development but also on protecting and improving environmental quality. National Environment Policy 2006 of India suggests that environmental impacts are low at low levels of economic growth and then increase as the economy grows. As a certain level of economic development is reached, economic resources and technology get available to address these environmental concerns leading to reversal in trend and an improvement in the environmental conditions. This research, therefore, aims to study environmental quality in an economically and industrially developed state in India where environmental investments in the form of pollution control mechanisms have been made and has the following objectives: 1) To analyse economic performance of the major states in India especially with respect to industrial growth. 2) To analyse the pattern of industrialisation in the selected state with respect to type of industries, scale of investments, geographical spread of industries and composition of water polluting industries in the overall industrialisation. 3) To study the interface between industrial development and environmental quality in an area. 4) To analyse the effectiveness of pollution control mechanisms set up to treat water pollution from industries. The key research question which this research would like to answer is Have the Pollution Control Mechanisms set up by industries to treat industrial effluents been effective in treating pollution? To study economic performance of states, the gross state domestic product (GSDP) for major states has been analysed for the period 1981 to 2010. This analysis has led to selection of Gujarat for detailed study as the state.