These resources are the ‘environmental infrastructure’ gifted by Nature to sustain life in this planet and man cannot add even a particle to these. The least governments obsessed with global city dreams and mega-size physical infrastructure could do is to prevent their decay and degeneration. Chennai’s Second Master Plan makes a feeble attempt towards this when it says: “Sustainable cities are fundamental to social and economic development. Sustainability is not an option but imperative.”

Yet, these environmental resources are degenerating and decaying and government agencies have not initiated any worthwhile effort to stem the rot. Instead they are busy conjuring up fancy and untenable projects. A standing example is the large seawater desalination plants to supply high-cost water to this hot and humid metropolis where water wastage is high and paying capacity low. This, in a city till recently endowed with good surface and underground water that have been depleted and destroyed due to incompetent water-resource management.

Reasons are not far to seek. There is near total absence of any worthwhile public and stakeholder participation in decision making and project formulation. Neither has there been any effort to collectively find workable solutions to sustain and conserve the city’s natural resources. Secretiveness and arbitrariness in handling sensitive matters with far reaching environmental impact has become the order of the day. A typical example is the multi-crore ‘beach beautification projects’ in Marina, Besant Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur waterfront, which real beach-lovers never wanted, yet has been thrust on them. However, due to concerted public action the Thiruvanmiyur project has been reluctantly abandoned.

The Second Master Plan says that without sustainability, environmental deterioration and economic decline will be feeding on each other, leading to poverty, pollution, poor health, political upheaval and unrest. The plan wants special ‘attention paid to conserving our natural resources and also improving the status of our environment’.

Critical environmental resources in and around Chennai Metropolitan Area that need to be conserved and improved include the Adyar estuary and creek, Pulicat Lake, Kattupalli Island, Cooum River, Adyar River, Rettai Eri of Madhavaram, Pallikaranai marsh, Southern Aquifers, Guindy national park, the long coastline, major reservoirs, minor water bodies and their catchment areas and the system of interconnected tanks. Ironically, almost all these environmental resources are water related and we are a water-starved city!

The Master Plan outlines several stellar strategies. It calls for the emerging environmental problems related to land, air, noise and water to be dealt with and the natural assets safeguarded through sound polices and effective action. It suggests a sustainable environmental policy for Chennai in line with the National Environment Policy incorporating resource efficiency, cost minimisation and ‘polluter pays’ principle.

Campaign to reduce emission from vehicles is an important strategy advocated. “This should be combined with stricter enforcement, increasing the share of public transport vis-à-vis private transport and encouraging fuels like CNG, LPG etc.” Notably, the Master Plan directs the Corporation of Chennai and other local bodies to construct adequate number of toilets in public places. “Once this is completed, the obnoxious practice of defecating in the open should be strongly discouraged through effective action.”

Strict enforcement of CZR is another directive. Simultaneously ‘pollution levels should be reduced to acceptable standards in the waterways of Chennai in the next five years.”

What is happening on the ground is just the reverse. High-speed corridors and elevated highways are being planned/built to facilitate private modes of transport and Chennai is poised to rival Detroit in car production! There is no sign of any fuel efficiency move in public transportation. Waterways remain as polluted and the ‘obnoxious practice of defecating in the open’ continues unabated. There is just no institutional mechanism to regulate and enforce the environmental strategies contained in the Master Plan.

A comprehensive Environment Management and Action Plan adopting a public-private-participatory process is the need of the hour. Alongside would be the creation of a strong institutional mechanism to implement the plan effectively. Such a mechanism should be anchored in the local government instead of the State government. This is because conservation and improvement of environmental resources require active and sustained public participation, which can be achieved only with municipalities, NGOs and civil society organisations converging and working together locally.

Environmental enrichment would make Chennai a livable city. The global city can then follow!

(The author is a retired IAS officer)