Sustainable Development Goals: Can we pull them off?

Scale of problem:

• About half of India's energy comes from fossil fuel like coal. This pollutes the air when burnt. Also plays havoc with places where they are mined.
• India will empty its coal reserves in 17 years at current rate of extraction, says Greenpeace.

What the UPA did:

• Launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (2010). Ambitiously targeted at deploying 20,000 MW grid-connected solar power by 2022, reducing cost.

What the NDA is doing:

• Aims at generating 175 GW by 2022.

Good news:

• Solar power is getting cheaper. Madhya Pradesh recently offered the world's cheapest solar energy at Rs 5/unit.

Bad news:

• No clarity on how to deal with increasing e-waste from redundant solar panels. Solar energy continues to be inefficient: Lot of non-renewable energy is used to make solar cells. But clean energy generated in return is not enough.

Scale of problem:

• Unemployment is on the rise. More than 20% Indians under 24 are jobless (Census 2011).

What the UPA did:

• Pumped Rs 2.66 lakh crores into NREGA. That guaranteed minimum employment to 50 million households.

What the NDA is doing:

• Announced the Skill India initiative with a budget of Rs 1,543 crore.

Good news:

• Rural family income increased 12-33% across India in UPA regime. That helped food security, education, health care and debt repayment.
• The GDP grew at 7.3% last year. Likely to hit 8% this year, surpassing China. Caveat: The Modi government has a new method to calculate GDP.

Bad news:

• Of every Rs 5 spent, the poor got only Rs 1.
• The unorganized sector employs 93% of the workforce. This puts 40 crore Indians in need of professional skills.
• There are 21,820 Industrial Training Institutes with only 30 lakh seats.

Scale of problem:

• India has less than 4 km roads/1,000 people.
• 40% villages don't have all-weather roads.
• Our infrastructure ranks 91 out of 139 nations (World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index).

What the UPA did:

• Spent Rs 55,000 crore to construct 7,300 km of highways. Widened existing roadways.
• But missed investment targets for ports by 54%.

What the NDA is doing:

• Allocated Rs 42,000 crore to build roads.
• Approved Rs 20,000 crore National Investment and Infrastructure Fund for roads, railways and power plants.

Good news:

• The BJP manifesto had promised to enhance infrastructure. Among the ideas were bullet trains and a national optical-fibre network.

Bad news:

• Only a quarter of our national highways are four-lane.
• Poor transport and other infrastructure costs India 1.1% of GDP.

Scale of problem:

• India's Gini coefficient rose to 37 from 33 (since 1993). Indicates the country's increasing income inequality.
• Combined net worth of India's 100 richest is $345 billion (Rs 20.7 lakh crore). But an average Indian makes Rs 88,500 a year.

What the UPA did:

• Nothing much.

What the NDA is doing:

• No plans yet.

Good news:

• Nothing, really.

Bad News:

• An Indian CEO's salary is 78 times that of the average of his workforce.

Scale of problem:

• Cities are bursting at their seams.
• Urban population expected to double by 2050 from 410 million now. Will put immense pressure on cities for jobs, transport, housing and water.

What the UPA did:

• Created the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. Had a budget of Rs 42,900 crore for nine years.
• Ex-finance minister P Chidambaram wanted to bring 85% of Indians to cities.

What the NDA is doing:

• Modi promised 100 new smart cities by 2022. They are supposed to be power growth and provide housing for all.

Good news:

• Rs 1 lakh crore cleared to be spent on urban development over five years under two new missions.

Bad news:

• No clear roadmap for how smart cities would provide for the promises. Nothing much about community development.

Scale of problem:

• India has the third biggest ecological footprint. Our ecological deficit day - when the country's demand for ecological resources and services exceeds what the ecosystem can regenerate that year - was on June 30.

What the UPA did:

• A historic Supreme Court judgment in 1998 forced all public transport vehicles to switch to cleaner compressed natural gas. There were about one lakh such vehicles.

What the NDA is doing:

• At International Climate Negotiations, Prakash Javadekar said "Indian lifestyle is against extravagant consumption". Means it doesn't care two hoots.

Good news:

• India has rich ecological resources. It is among the top 10 countries contributing to the world's biocapacity.
• The shift to CNG cut suspended particulate matter in Delhi's air to 161 micrograms/cubic metre in 2007 from 409 in 1995.

Bad news:

• The average ecological footprint of a rich Indian exceeds the global average.
• Luxury car sales are expected to triple in five years.
• Delhi's air has turned poisonous again, hitting 316 micrograms/cubic metre. That's nearly 16 times more toxic than what WHO considers tolerable.

Scale of problem:

• Expect a 4-degree Celsius rise in temperature at the rate we are emitting greenhouse gases. The impact would be widespread.
• But India maintains that it needs to emit more for economic prosperity.

What the UPA did:

• Constituted the PM's Council on Climate Change in 2007. But that last met in February 2011. It only assessed the eight missions comprising the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).

What the NDA is doing:

• Focusing 50:50 on adaptation and mitigation of greenhouse gases.
• Considering reviving the high-level advisory panel to assess climate change impact. But no action so far.

Good news:

• Still looking for any.

Bad news:

• Voluntary emission cuts announced ahead of the CoP-21 in Paris not enough to cap global temperature rise at 2 degrees C. Impacts here would include more droughts and floods, melting glaciers. Rising ocean levels are a threat to islands.

Scale of problem:

• About 90% of our fish are at maximum sustainable levels of exploitation or worse.
• 26% of Indian 5,700 km coastline faces severe erosion. It is also receding due to massive construction activities.

What the UPA did:

• Brought in the 2011 Coastal Regulation Zone notification. That was meant to prevent construction in ecologically sensitive areas and any development within 100 meters of coastline.

What the NDA is doing:

• In June, Environment Minister Javadekar okayed a 35 km coastal road connecting Nariman Point to Kandivali. Drew much criticism from environmentalists.

Good news:

• Awareness has gone up.

Bad news:

• Half the world's olive ridley turtles come to Odisha. They are listed as threatened endangered species.
• Coastal erosion has made 30% of our population vulnerable to natural disasters.

Scale of problem:

• 1.64 lakh hectare forest land diverted towards mining. 253 species of wildlife endangered in just two years.

What the UPA did:

• Enacted Forest Rights Act, 2006 to conserve forests. It was also meant to give forest rights to communities.
• Implemented Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act in Fifth Schedule areas. This was to ensure public participation in development projects.
• But the number of endangered species jumped sharply to 443 in 2012 from 190 in 2010.

What the NDA is doing:

• The environment ministry allowed coalmines with capacity below 16 million tons/annum (mtpa) to expand without conducting public hearings. Earlier the cut-off was 8 mtpa.

Good news:

• India is among the world's finest biological hotspots - home to about 8% of the world's total plant and animal species.

Bad news:

• The current government cleared 16 major industrial projects since coming to power.
• The newly created National Board for Wildlife cleared 133 proposals in some of the most fragile wildlife habitats last month.

Scale of problem:

• Incidents of communal riots jumped almost 25% in the first five months of 2015. That data is from the Home Ministry.
• Some 40% citizens are deprived of basic rights and opportunities, says the Supreme Court.

What the UPA did:

• Not much.

What the NDA is doing:

• Nothing to write home about.

Good news:

• Modi has consciously focused on an image make-over since becoming the PM.

Bad news:

• Little Muslim representation within the BJP. Of the party's 157 candidates in the Bihar elections, only two are from the community.

Scale of problem:

• India has a rapid growth rate and the world's largest youth population. The country considers itself important for global partnerships. But it is not seen as mature enough to be part of bodies like the UN Security Council.

What the UPA did:

• Worked towards achieving MDGs. Helped reduce poverty by half. Achieved gender parity in primary school enrollment.

What the NDA is doing:

• Modi's way seems to be foreign visits. Has been to 25 countries in 15 months. Remains to be seen what it does in about the SDGs.

Good news:

• India made significant progress towards MDGs. Met some targets ahead of the deadline even. And that's from UN Development Programme itself.

Bad news:

• The UNDP also says we have not been consistent with MDGs.