More Focus On Clean India
I have no doubt that India in 2018 will see better gross domestic product (GDP) growth than it did in 2017. All estimates suggest that the economy will improve to a likely GDP growth of 7.4-7.6 per cent in 2019 — too slow a trajectory for some, but at least directionally right. The benefits of GST (goods and services tax) will begin to flow through as early implementation pains are behind us and rectification actions are under way.
2018 will be an important year for performance under the Swacch Bharat objectives given the ambitious targets that were set to be achieved by 2019. Considerable progress has been made as government reports 75 per cent toilet coverage across 3 lakh villages, up from 38 per cent and 47,000 villages three years ago. This momentum is expected to continue through 2018.
There is an urgent need for heightened focus on behaviour change and faecal sludge management. If we encourage people to use toilets, but the tractors and trucks that empty septic tanks leave the waste where it came from (i.e., on our fields and streets as the costs and time to take the excreta to sewage treatment plants is expensive and time consuming because of distance or other reasons), this will have a very expensive outcome. However, if we can treat this collected waste, and sell it as fertiliser or bio-gas, recognising that waste to wealth is possible, we would ensure the waste is treated. The country has seen the operating of the first Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants (FSTP) — in Devenhalli, Bangalore and Ladakh — which will show the way for more such smaller treatment plants nationally.
We should have more innovations and more entrepreneurs entering maintenance of toilets and treatment of waste as that will create more jobs related to the Swacch Bharat agenda. This will see corporates and organisations outsourcing the responsibility of toilet cleanliness and maintenance (which is not their core competence) to entrepreneurs who would provide clean and usable toilets to the public paid for by the corporates or the users.
We should also see a determined effort to tackle pollution as heightened citizen awareness will demand results. A 2013 World Bank report estimated that pollution costs India nearly $80 billion a year or nearly 6 per cent of our GDP. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards are in place, so action needs to be planned and tracked against these standards. Air pollution is created in numerous ways — power generation, transport, industry, construction and road dust, waste and agriculture, particularly stubble burning in fields; so we need multiple lines of attack for the short term, and for impact in the long term. Renewables and electric vehicles will be important trends in 2018 with far reaching impact in the years to come. We will see development of green financing markets in India and globally, making some of these much needed transitions easier.
