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HCFI Round Table Environment Expert Zoom Meeting on “Union Budget 2022-23: What is for Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change?”

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Dr Veena Aggarwal, Consultant Womens’ Health, CMD and Editor-in-Chief, IJCP Group & Medtalks Trustee, Dr KK’s Heart Care Foundation of India    15 February 2022

February 6, 2022; 12noon-1pm

  • The union budget was presented on Feb. 1, 2022. It has promised to take the issues of sustainability and climate change seriously.
  • Key features with respect to environment and sustainability are low carbon development strategy and climate change agenda.
  • The main areas of focus are promoting technology, energy development and transition and climate action. 
  • The priorities are PM Gati Shakti, inclusive development, productivity enhancement and investment, sunrise opportunity and climate action and financing of investments.
  • PM Gati Shakti, the National Master Plan for Multimodal Connectivity, is driven by seven engines: roads, railways, airports, ports, mass transport, waterways and logistics infrastructure.
  • Green energy and clean mobility systems are featured as sunrise opportunities. 
  • Others include Low carbon, climate resilient development, chemical-free natural farming, “panchamrit” the five commitments made at COP26, battery swapping policy, green bonds for green infrastructure, blended finance for sunrise sectors (such as climate action, deep-tech, digital economy, pharma and agri-tech), infrastructure strategy for data centers and energy strategy system, production-linked incentive (PLI). 
  • Rs 19,500 Cr have been allocated to boost manufacturing of high efficiency solar photovoltaic modules within the country under the PLI scheme. 
  • The focus is also on climate adaptation.
  • The government of India has taken a very encouraging step towards electric vehicles, especially by coming up with a battery swapping policy. The team from Pondicherry (in an earlier meeting of the Round Table) had e-autorickshaws, which work on battery and they had a battery swapping policy, which is exchanging a discharged Electric car battery with one which is already charged, a move that can decrease the long refuelling time, which is one of the major limitations of zero emission vehicles. This can result in huge reduction in air pollution, even water pollution if people start following because alternative energy is very easy for charging battery through solar etc. This can have lot of positive effect on health. 
  • Any development done only for economic development will definitely disturb the environment. Sustainability is usually not considered. 
  • Two important points in this budget. One is encouragement of chemical-free farming within 5 km radius of rivers. This is a long-lasting effort, which will definitely improve water quality in rivers in long term. Secondly, the emphasis on alternative energy, the combustion of fuel will be less. It will help in overall improvement in air quality.
  • But ground water recharging should also have been highlighted and some allocation should have been made for this.
  • Rs 5205 crores have been earmarked for manufacture of High Efficiency Solar PV Module to be implemented by the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy (MNRE).
  • Sovereign green bonds will be issued for green infrastructure and proceeds will be deployed in public sector projects, which will help in reducing carbon intensity of economy.
  • Energy transition, climate finance, inclusive growth – all these terms were mentioned multiple times in the budget but the announcement (of funding) appeared to fall short in promoting clean energy in an accelerated manner.
  • Amount funding should have been more. The increased funding under the PLI scheme, the inclusion of a ‘zero fossil fuel’ policy, electric vehicle policy, EV battery-swapping and coal gasification policy are all good steps. At a macro level, an increase in capex will boost economic growth, however, not much additional budgetary support or tax incentives have been provided to clean energy both grid and off-grid including solar rooftop, storage technologies and green hydrogen- there was an expectation that support will be provided to these technologies to improve their commercial viability.
  • The government should have provided a budget allocation and reduction of duties to allow deployment of roof top solar, storage, off-shore wind, green hydrogen, etc. It did not offer support for closure of inefficient fossil fuel plants. Also, it did not deal with increasing air pollution problem. While the government had made very specific allocations to tackle air pollution in the last budget, this year there are no additional funds to specifically address the problem.
  • Allocation for climate change action plan is not adequate and is only 30 crores.
  • The total budget allocation for Environment ministry is 3030 crores. Out of this, only 142 crore is for environment protection, management and sustainable development.
  • Rs 960 crores for centrally sponsored schemes; the budget for National Green Mission has been increased to 361 crores this year from Rs 290 crore in the last year.
  • For integrated development of wildlife habitat, the allocation is 510 crores.
  • For Commission for Air Quality Management, Rs 17 crores has been allocated.
  • The allocation for the national clean air program has remained flat.
  • The LPG subsidy has been reduced from 12,000 Cr to 4000 Cr. This would affect the shift from burning of wood fuel. 
  • The Budget for environmental education, awareness and training was also reduced from Rs 77.13 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 58 crore in 2022-23.
  • Some allocation should have been made towards waste management. 
  • No sector talks of giving incentives; tax incentives should be given to the public for environmental issues such as waste management. 
  • There was lot of focus on Green hydrogen mission, but it has been ignored in the budget - only 0.1 crore has been allocated.
  • DMRC is working on multimodal integration in green mobility. A plan is being developed to allot proper space for parking of autorickshaws, which otherwise cause traffic congestion near the metro stations.
  • Some targets for departments were expected to fulfil the commitments made at COP26, but no such directions have been made in the budget.
  • DMRC is holding sessions for staff to create awareness about green environment. They are also being trained for this.
  • The government is expanding the scope of Parivesh, which is a single window portal for all environmental clearances to promote ease of doing business and transparency in the process. However, this may be a risk by diluting environment safeguards.
  • There is no provision for R&D to design air pollution control systems or develop technology to reduce air pollution.
  • There is nothing about waste management and air pollution in this budget. 
  • If we want the general public to segregate waste, recycle waste, etc. there should be tax incentives/benefits. Since there is no encouragement, there is also no awareness or very poor awareness about environment.
  • The new bill for energy consumption amendment Bill 2022 will have a legal/regulatory framework for carbon trading in India.
  • Budget for environment education, awareness and training has also been reduced this year.
  • Manufacture and installation of solar panels in the country started from 2010-11.The life of solar panels is 25 years. There is no concrete focus on their disposal. This needs to be discussed and worked out. 
  • Rs 60,000 crore has been allocated to provide tap water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
  • Overall it’s a good budget. It has focused on climate change, atmanirbhar Bharat, Gati Shakti, renewable energy. There is need for strategic framework for India green transition.
  • Public and private partnership is very important to carry forward the matter of air pollution.

Participants

Dr Anil Kumar

Mr Vivek Kumar

Mr Neeraj Tyagi

Dr SK Gupta

Mr Vikas Singhal

Mr Ankit Sethi

Dr BC Sabat

Mr Varun Singh

Ms Ira Gupta

Dr S Sharma

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