Independent Environmental Regulation in India: Less an Authority and more a Process from Below

Abstract

With India’s well-intentioned environmental laws and legal interpretations in place, there is still a perceptible weakness in the enforcement of her environmental regulations. This is ascribed to the centralised departmental structure and process of implementation, which prioritise clearances of developmental projects over monitoring and cleaning up of already polluted environments. Although in a democratic set-up, a lack of transparency and participation of knowledgeable stakeholders in decision-making are other process weaknesses noticed. Establishing an Independent Environmental Regulatory Authority has been tried repeatedly but given up mainly because its effectiveness depends on the same resources support as at present, on reliable primary field-level environmental data, not gathered regularly now and on sustained political support. Technically analysing the issues involved, this article suggests a process shift towards a locally relevant, transparent, decentralised, participative and area-science–value-based approach that can strengthen environmental regulation from below.