Expert group to evaluate impact of economic growth on environment

NEW DELHI: Targeting a 9% plus growth rate in the Twelfth plan period, the Government has initiated an exercise to assess the impact of economic growth on the environment.

An expert group, headed by environmental economist Partha Dasgupta, will provide a road map for Green National Accounting (GNA) system to evaluate impact of economic growth on environment by 2015. The committee will include economists Nitin Desai, Vijay Kelkar and Kirit Parikh, Pronob Sen, TCA Anant and Kanchan Chopra. The group is set up jointly by the Planning Commission and Environment Ministry.

"This expert group will provide a road map for GNA. By 2015, we would report Gross Domestic Product (GDP) after taking into account environmental costs. The expert group will soon start to make what are the environmental and ecological implications of high GDP growth on ecology and biodiversity," Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said.

Economists estimate GDP as a broad measure of national income and Net Domestic Product (NDP) accounts for the use of physical capital. However, there is no generally accepted system to convert GDP into green domestic product, which would reflect the use of depletable natural resources in the process of generating national income. The GNA system would help government bringing out GDP growth data co-relating it with impact on the environment.

Ramesh had recently questioned the country's 9% growth reports, contending that if the impact on ecology had been taken into consideration, the growth would have been only around 6%. Given the escalation over the economic growth versus environment debate, the idea of a green domestic product, alongside the conventional GDP takes on greater significance. By reporting both gross domestic product and green domestic product, it will be possible to get a better picture of the trade-offs involved in the process of economic growth. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said, "I fully endorse the view of Jairam Ramesh that growth should be sustainable and it is desirable that we should reduce emission intensity."