‘Link states’ green quotient with resources’

The Planning Commission, in a report to the Prime Minister, has sought to a change in the Gadgil Mukerjee formula for allocation of resources to state governments.

Updated on: Sep 12, 2010, 23:44:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Planning Commission, in a report to the Prime Minister, has sought to a change in the Gadgil Mukerjee formula for allocation of resources to state governments.

This comes days after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed concern over environment degradation. Only two states meet river water quality norms and six comply with overall air quality norms. Half the states do not have adequate facilities to treat waste.

“Considering the influence of natural resources depletion and unabated pollution in many sectors of the economy, it is considered necessary to evolve environment performance by states as a criteria for allocation of resources,” the commission said in a note to Prime Minister’s Office.

Under the Gadgil Mukerjee formula, the maximum weightage (60 per cent) is given to population of the state followed by per capita income (25 per cent) whereas environmental performance is not even considered.

The panel has recommended water pollution, air quality, waste management, forest management and climate change as five sectors for reviving environment performance of states. “Based on the performance, the states will get additional funds,” a commission official said.

Singh at a recent meeting with editors had expressed concern over environment degradation and sought a balance between economic growth and saving the environment.

“We are looking at ways to foster economic growth by minimising impact on the environment,” commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia said.

One such initiative is a paper on managing water depleting resources in the country. The panel is likely to suggest a charge on extracting underground water and a penalty for pollution water resources.

According to commission’s evaluation, underground water in the entire northern plain is depleting and only 40 per cent of sewage released into water bodies is treated.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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