Evolving an integrated environmental management plan for sustainable industrialization of Pondicherry region

Abstract

Environmental management, a term encompassing environmental planning, protection, monitoring, assessment, research, education, conservation and sustainable use of resources, is now accepted as a major guiding factor for sustainable development at the regional and national level. Since the Brundtland Report appeared in 1987, the concept of sustainable development has become widely acknowledged by Governments and international organisations. It is now being increasingly recognised that environmental factors and ecological imperatives must be in built to the total planning process if the long-term goal of making industrial development sustainable is to be achieved. The concept of Environmental Management Plan (EMP) emerged as an alternative to the traditional sectoral approach to solve environmental problems that prevailed during the 1970s. The latter has resulted in inefficient, ad-hoc procedures and contributed to the creation of new environmental problems, mainly due to difficulties in policy coordination. The Union Territory of Pondicherry has attracted more number of industries in the past two decades, due to the various incentives given by the Government by way of tax concessions, power subsidies, tax holidays and soft loans that were not available in most of the other neighboring states. The rapid growth of industries in the past decades has resulted in the increase in the level of pollution, population, urbanisation and other related developments, pushing the environment impacts closer to the threshold limits of tolerance. Thus, they have obviously affected the life supporting systems (soil, air and water) in the ecologically fragile coastal zone. Even though, it has been often stated that the industrialisation has caused severe impacts in Pondicherry region in the recent past, a detailed systematic investigation is yet to be carried out. Thus, this study gives a comprehensive approach to assess the past envirolmental history and present scenario of the industrialisation and environmental quality in order to prepare an Environmental Management Plan for the sustainable industrialization of Pondicheny region in line with the recent guidelines for ~nvironmentally sustainable industrialisation from international and national organizations.