Revisiting environmental policy in India: An analysis of structure, process, and institution

The current paper attempts to understand the established environmental policies and parliamentary regulations for the protection, conservation, and consolidation of the environmental laws in India on one hand and focuses on the contemporary emerging issues on the other. Undoubtedly, India is currently passing through a difficult time where most of its regulatory bodies and constitutional laws are facing an internal crisis. These are often found irrelevant; as they failed to maintain a healthy environment in the country over time. Critics also argue that environmental issues in India are rightly standing as a major obstacle in which ‘environmental pressure’ is found to be high. So long as India’s environmental initiatives are concerned, India had been a founding member of many global conferences, symposiums, and environmental debates from time to time. Among all of them, one of the founding attempts was the Stockholm Conference (1972). This led to the initial foundation touch for the development of its domestic and national environmental policy thereafter. However, India’s environmental concerns were so ancient as it has inherently linked with the colonial past. But, despite all such efforts, the issue and challenge of environmental problems in the country are still new, fresh, and continuously weaving in different forms like water scarcity and resource conflict, climate change, and resource management. At the same time, Population growth and economic development might be equally responsible. Hence, the author wants to critically examine a few major areas of the study. In the first place, it tries to focus on the emergence of the environmental policy structure in India historically; while, the second, is the pioneering role of the Modi government in tackling the environmental challenges in the light of sustainable development and especially the debated climate issue in the 21st century; lastly, it provides a critical analysis to address the current difficulties in the realm of environmental policy system of India.