Most of these issues are covered in Indian environmental Acts that deal with clean air, clean water, clean environment, toxics and hazardous wastes, forest protection, wildlife protection, and the right to information.

In fact, in issues such as wildlife protection, the Indian legislation encompasses not merely the protection of an endangered species, but also the protection of the habitat in which they exist.

Certainly, we do not have legislations such as the Superfund Act. But considering that we are more at the entry stage in industrial development, compared to the advanced stage that the US is in, our environmental policies should ensure that we do not need such an Act. That is, if we enforce our existing laws, we should avoid having to clean up toxic waste dumpsites.

Even structurally, there are similarities between the American and Indian regulatory machinery. At the Federal level, the USEPA is designed with reasonable administrative autonomy.

While the Administrator — a political apointee — gives the political direction, the technical grounding is provided by the rest of the staff who are career technocrats. The Federal EPA liases with the State Governments through its regional offices.

In addition, there are Federal EPA laboratories in the eco-regions. For instance, the regional laboratory at Duluth, on the banks of the Lake Superior, is studying the impact of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, flowing into the lake from point and non-point sources, on the aquatic animals. The result from these studies could get built into the Federal standards, either at the national level, or the eco-region level as required.

The States, in turn, have their own environmental regulation departments, which lay down the standards and implement them. Environmental departments at the county and municipality level follow these State departments, and work on laying down micro-level standards and implementation.

In India, the Centre-State hierarchy is more or the less the same with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs).

Most of the environment legislations used are those that have evolved from the Centre, but the power for their implementation has been delegated to the SPCBs.

The machinery, however, almost blurs as it reaches the local governments at the district and the town/village level. It is usually the district level office of the SPCB or the officials from the district, municipality or corporation who implement regulations at this level.

While both the laws and the structure of the regulatory machinery are reasonably similar in India and the US, the implementation of the laws are not.

And this is where the inadequacy of resources, infrastructure and manpower training come into the picture.

It is a rather delicate task to be an effective environmental regulatory agency. Neither can the agency close its eyes to pollution, nor can it clamp down so rigidly that it hampers economic growth.

To meet this responsibility it would require the ability to independently assess a project or issue. Without this the pollution control boards either become impotent to take any action, or carry out crusades. Neither of them achieve the desired optimum results.

There is one way of justifying ourselves. We can argue that the US crossed the milestone of industrialisation earlier than India, and its machinery for environmental protection and pollution control is more evolved than ours. After all, this machinery is part of the industrialisation baggage.

Since we have ambitions of leapfrogging the developmental process the machinery has to also leapfrog its effectiveness.

However, even an effective machinery can have only a limited impact if the polluters do not self-govern. In my apartment complex the residents follow the rules because they themselves make them.

Perhaps even in the sixth decade of our self-rule as a nation we feel that somebody else rules for us.

The author can be contacted at warrier@thehindu.co.in

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