Environmental Issues in India: An Introduction

India’s environment is being polluted over the last several decades at an increasing rate. There has been a general increase in overexploitation of the natural sources and hence degradation of the environment. The rapid progress in industrialization and economic growth, changing lifestyles and population explosion and migration – all have contributed to the pollution and degradation of the general environment of the country. The pollution problems have also been compounded by lack of recognition and ineffective steps taken to combat the problem over the years. Primarily Land, water and air pollution are the areas which have been concentrated upon. But, in recent times, sub divisions such as noise pollution, electronic waste are also increasingly debated. At this juncture, India faces major challenges in maintaining an intricate balance between its high profile energy requirements in the face of rapid economic growth and at the same time the need to protect the environment from deterioration. Even though India has made good efforts for protecting the environment by having stringent standards for several industrial processes, pollutants and effluent treatments and has introduced environment audit, it is a long way before these efforts actually pay results, as India lags behind in the key area of enforcing the standards. In this scenario, when environmental pollution and its protection have been important issues before the country, this book, Environmental Issues In India: An Introduction makes a comprehensive study assessing the issues involved and analyzes the important trends and developments that harm or protect the environment.