Practice & Policy

Environmental enforcement of industrial clusters in India is a daunting task for  regulators. The clusters consist of micro-smallmedium enterprises (MSMEs) who do not  have adequate technical capacity, capital and space to install individual pollution control  plants. Consequently, common solutions are sought where a pollution control plant for the entire cluster is established and operated. Industries collect effluents and send them  for treatment and disposal to…

This Sunday morning I was having a cup of tea with diet khakras (Indian crunchy snack) and reading a newspaper. My Professor friend called me. “Have you got any used tube lights to dispose?” I didn’t have one in the house (as I use mostly the CFLs) but remembered that my garage had 4 used tube lights of Elips make. I hadn’t figured out how…

  The subject of environmental modelling always interested me. But I got into this subject by accident. I remember that seminar topics were being allotted at IIT Bombay during our third year of civil engineering. We bunked the lecture where the allotment of topics was to happen and landed at the staff canteen – screaming and shouting. Prof J S R Murthy after waiting in…

I wanted to refill petrol in my car so I drove to my usual petrol pump located at Turner road in Bandra. The lane to the petrol pump was choked and it was after more than 15 minutes of ‘car crawl’ that I finally managed to reach the pump. When I asked Abdul, my usual pump mechanic, he pointed me to a billboard that red…

Making a presentation at the Environmental Clearance (EC) Committee is often an ordeal. A lot depends on the moods and whims of the Committee Members. The fate of the project i.e. Go or No Go depends on the presentation made by the Consultant hired by the Project Proponent. A considerable time is spent on the preparation of the presentation. Often rehearsals are made and advice…

  Corporate sustainability reports have been around since four decades. The first reports were perhaps published by the chemical industries that polluted the environment and faced bad reputation and penalties. Sustainability report was more of a savvier! Since then, more than 10,000 companies have published more than 50,000 reports, according to CorporateRegister.com, which maintains a searchable database of reports. The Global Reporting Initiative has basically…

Resource extraction across the world is getting more and more intensive. Material flows (both of virgin and used materials) are getting skewed. Some of the important factors responsible for the shift are market globalization, presence of perverse subsidies (i.e. unrealistic resource pricing) and unevenness in environmental governance. These changes have a major significance for the economy and more so for the very resource security of…

  The TSR Subramanian Committee in India came up with several radical recommendations  to improve India’s environmental governance The new concept of ‘utmost good faith’ has been proposed through a new legislation,  Environmental Laws (Management) Act (ELMA). ELMA would oblige an applicant to  disclose everything about a proposed project. The disclosure will need to include a project’s potential to pollute and its proposed solution –…

I often ask question in the “interviews” (I like the term “discussions” instead) to young professionals and students “which book did they follow during their studies”. In many cases, you will be surprised that the student does not even remember the title and author of the book! That’s terribly disappointing. I feel sorry. Some students when answer, I feel that they could have followed some…

  My senior Professor friend dropped by to my office when I was busy preparing list of research topics for the master’s students for the new academic year. The Professor looked at my list and exclaimed – “Prasad, you are taking this task rather seriously. Identifying research that makes a sense is relatively easy but have you ever thought of floating research topics that lead…