Sustainable Development and Challenges to Decentralised Governance 387

22.4.3 Income Generation

As has been stated earlier, there are gross inequalities between the urban and rural areas
in terms of development. A substantial number of people are living below poverty level.
The sustainable development becomes all the more important in the rural sector. What
options can a government give to its population to earn their livelihood? What are the
schemes it can undertake to generate income? The urban areas are seen as potential
income generators with the concentration of many engineering, heavy metal, garment and
software industries to name a few. While urban areas are preferred for their industrial
base and technical opportunities, the rural areas are left with few options and that too
without implementation strategies. Though agriculture is a predominant occupation in rural
areas, not enough measures have been taken to revitalise the sector for commercial
purposes; and where the measures were taken, there continues to be an undue exploitation
of the natural wealth. The resultant effect is the mass migration of people from rural to
urban areas. This has created severe crisis in terms of providing job opportunities and
generating sufficient levels of income. The wide variety of natural resources was put under
severe constraint for meeting the livelihood needs. Though varied efforts regarding
sustainable human development have been undertaken, not enough income was generated
to meet the required needs.

22.5 CHALLENGES TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

AND ENVIRONMENT
There are numerous challenges to sustainable development in India. While many of these
problems are caused due to insensitive use of natural resources, governmental responsibility
is also trifling in solving the critical issues. This deterioration of environment has a direct
impact on the life of individuals, affecting the longevity of life, which in turn, affects the
development process on the whole. The degraded soil, depleted aquifers, diminishing
forest cover, deteriorating urban environment and destroyed eco-systems can scarcely
support better living standards and quality of life in future. The challenges are both natural
and man-made and are enumerated as below:

22.5.1 Deforestation
The forest resources in India as well as around the world are on the verge of a higher
depletion rate and are reaching alarming proportions. The individuals, corporations,
government agencies etc., are responsible for this menace. In the name of developmental
projects, the felling of trees is being carried out leaving behind the goals of sustainable
development and human progress. The most serious problem of deforestation is the loss
of biodiversity. The destruction of forests leads to not only the extinction of endangered
animal species but also many plant varieties that have immense medicinal value. It is also
responsible for global warming in a massive way.

22.5.2 Threat to Biodiversity

The biodiversity of the earth is a crucial asset that needs to be conserved and utilised in
a judicious manner. The fair and equitable sharing of these resources is a prerequisite for
a good life. The massive habitat destruction, pollution of the land, water and soil has a
drastic effect on the survival of biodiversity. The biological resources, due to injudicious
use, are on the verge of extinction. Though the problem can be solved by applying
serious restrictions on the excessive use, lack of collective will has greatly hampered the
process of sustainable development at large.
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22.5.3 Effects of Climate Change

The drastic changes in the climatic variations resulted in poor health conditions of the
human beings and earth resources. These have also spilled dire consequences on the
social and environmental aspects of the society. The increasing temperature levels and the
carbon emissions had severe effects like crop failures, increasing droughts, scarcity of
food supply, contagious diseases, degradation of environment, increasing floods and so on.
Lack of disaster management methods and systematic marginalisation of local communities
in policy formulations have increased the vulnerabilities to the natural and man-made
disasters.

22.5.4 Increasing Pollution Levels

The degrading levels of air quality are widely recognised as a major factor of pollution,
especially in urban areas. The sources of air pollution include industrial pollution, indoor
and vehicular pollution. The pollution in urban areas is caused by the presence of a
number of industries that emanate smoke and other chemical substances into the air.
Added to this is the vehicular pollution that has been on an increase every year. The sale
in the number of vehicles has been zooming at an unprecedented scale and leading to
massive traffic congestions. This invariably has resulted in serious health hazards like
asthma, respiratory problems, hearing impairment and so on. The indoor air pollution is
caused due to the use of wood, dung cakes and crop residues. Children, especially girls,
are said to be at greater health risk as they stay indoors to help women in the household
chores.

22.5.5 Ground Water Depletion and Pollution

While shortage of water continues to loom large, the inefficient use of water is an
avoidable crisis, which otherwise can lead to imbalances in the water management
methods. Apart from this, access to safe drinking water has also become a pertinent issue
with major organic and bacterial pollutants being untreated. In many of the cities,
untreated municipal waste/sewage is being discharged into the rivers. The urban regions
are especially prone to such pollution as they are not equipped with adequate sewage
treatment facilities. The shrinking ground water levels have resulted in acute shortage of
water across the nation, especially during the summer season. It is only recently that the
water harvesting measures are being undertaken with some of the cities making it
mandatory.

22.5.6 Poor Health

The developments in the health sector are confined basically to urban areas; moreover, the
status of income too largely determines the access to it. Life expectancy levels, no doubt,
have gone up but it is altogether important to note the high rates of infant mortality. The
recent UNDP Report too expressed its unhappiness over India’s inability to provide health
facilities to its population. The provision of health care facilities is closely related to
economic growth and social well being; better health of an individual enables him/her to
bring down the production losses thereby contributing to higher levels of productivity. This
has a direct influence on the resources and avoids unnecessary expenditure, which can be
diverted towards ensuring better living standards. The Community Health Centres, responsible
for ensuring the rural health care facilities, are often under-staffed or comprise the staff
that is unwilling to work in the rural areas. Often, they lack necessary medical equipment
and infrastructure to extend health care.
Sustainable Development and Challenges to Decentralised Governance 389

22.5.7 Literacy Rate

One of the basic and most important components of development is education. It is a
critical invasive instrument for bringing about social, economic and political inclusion and
a durable integration of people, particularly those ‘excluded’ from the mainstream of any
society. It is the best social investment, given the synergies and the positive externalities
that it generates for people in their well being. The female literacy rates continue to lag
behind and the progress is often overshadowed by the disparities in terms of gender,
caste groups, and income groups and at urban and rural levels. Where there is a higher
female literacy rate, it has substantially lowered the fertility, infant and child mortality rates.
It has also instilled confidence among rural women to earn their incomes by joining the
self help groups and women’s development groups.

22.5.8 Environmental Sustainability

The environmental quality is also threatened by the urban solid wastes in the form of
garbage, household solid waste, waste from hospitals and scientific laboratories. In urban
areas, one recurrently comes across heaps of solid waste including the plastic bags lying
on the roadside, which serve as open dumping sites. The fungi, bacteria and virus pose
enormous risk to health especially to the residents living close to these open disposal sites.
Time and again this waste is disposed off through sewage system, ensuing in drain
blockages and interruption in free flow of water. This further leads to the contamination
of water and pollution of safe drinking water. Inadequate collection and lack of proper
disposal facilities are the prime reasons for this widespread peril.

22.6 STATE’S RESPONSIBILITIES

The State has an enormous responsibility in ensuring the conservation of resources in a
sustainable manner apart from providing a decent standard of living. For this, effective
policy needs to be framed at the State and local level as well. The governmental
machinery should involve itself in a very big way to realise this goal. The necessary
prerequisites for this are enumerated as follows.

22.6.1 Policy Framework at the State Level

The policy framework includes initiatives at the Central, State and Local levels to counter
the above mentioned challenges to the society. Since our concern is to discuss the efforts
at the state and local level, let us look into some of the policies as undertaken at this
level. The Indian policies, especially the ones related to the economy, centred on the
promotion of the public and the private sector and adoption of liberal/market oriented
economic policies. The liberalised phase of the economy witnessed an unprecedented use
of resources as the nation had to compete in the global markets. The resulting depletion
of resources had put an enormous burden on the State to pursue environmentally friendly
policies. Since then, numerous efforts are being undertaken or initiated at the local levels
to take into consideration ‘sustainable development’ as a major goal. For development
without destruction, the Government initiated the programmes like controlling urban
pollution, minimisation of deforestation measures, joint forest management, environmental
management system, water harvesting measures to counter ground water depletion,
biodiversity conservation measures and so on. The government even initiated a National
Environmental Policy, which is under thorough scrutiny by various concerned bodies and
organisations of the State. The government has also given due importance to rural