Bhupender Yadav : Union Cabinet Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change
Traditional wisdom on environmental governance, captured through the Environment Kuznets curve, posits that countries grow first and clean up later. This empirical insight is informed by the experience of now developed countries which exploited the natural environment, at home and abroad, to feed the resource requirements of the growth process. But such luxury is not available to countries like India, which still need to grow rapidly to meet the development aspirations of their large population. When NDA assumed office in 2014, the challenge was to accelerate growth and development on the cardinal principles of our visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi which is “Reform, Perform and Transform” without compromising with the rigour of environmental safeguards, wherever required, and providing a quantum jump to ease of doing business. Today, as we stand in 2025, we have not only met this challenge but created a governance model that the world acknowledges. Prime Minister Modi's vision was clear: transform this system into one that serves both “ecology and economy”.
Our first major initiative was the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014, which went beyond cleanliness to establish a comprehensive framework for waste management and environmental stewardship. This mission demonstrated our commitment to integrating environmental concerns with social development. It was launched as a mass movement involving all citizens and raising the demand for a cleaner, more resource efficient India. The National Air Quality Index was launched soon after providing real-time air quality monitoring across cities to the citizens in a transparent manner
The Make in India initiative, also launched in 2014, incorporated stringent environmental compliance standards, proving that we could promote manufacturing at a much faster scale and speed while maintaining ecological integrity. The Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) Scheme in 2015 was expanded to promote energy efficiency and include more energy-intensive industries, creating a market-based mechanisms for energy efficiency. From 2016 onwards, all key waste management rules are being regularly updated for effective waste management, enhancing resource efficiency and fostering a circular economy. The foundational principle of this approach is a reliance on market- based mechanisms and the extended producer responsibility framework based on “polluter pays principle”. The Plastic Waste Management Rules, the E-waste Management Rules, the Tyre, Battery and Used Oil Waste Management Rules were all framed on these principles. This led to the creation of an ecosystem whereby nearly 4,000 recyclers of various materials have been brought from the informal sector to the formal sector as registered recyclers generating a revenue of more than Rs.1600 crores in FY 24-25. The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) portals launched in 2022 represent an important step towards the circular economy. In FY 24-25, 61,055 producers have registered on EPR portals for plastic packaging, e-waste, waste tyres, battery waste, and used oil. After publication of the Waste Rules, 2022 and introduction of EPR portals, the quantity of waste processed has increased to 127.48 lakh tonnes in FY 24-25 million MT per annum compared to 3.6 MMT per annum before publication of these rules. This has been possible because of the co-operation and support of all the stakeholders.
To cut down procedural delays and carry out a comprehensive environmental assessment, an online IT tool known as PARIVESH (Pro-Active and Responsive facilitation by Interactive, Virtuous and Environmental Single-window Hub) was launched in 2018. This digital platform revolutionized the interaction between businesses and environmental regulators, embodying Prime Minister Modi's Digital India vision. PARIVESH transformed environmental clearances from a cumbersome, paper-based process to a streamlined and robust digital experience. This approach maintained the rigor of environmental assessment while reducing processing times significantly and enhancing transparency.
The official launch of the National Clean Air Programme in 2019 with city-specific action plans marked our transition from policy maker and regulator to that of an implementer. NCAP targets a 40% reduction in PM10 concentrations by 2025-26 or achieve national standards of 60 microgram/m 3 as compared to the baseline year of 2017-18. The CPCB has played a crucial role in close monitoring of NCAP as well as air quality trends in 131 CPCB, leading to continuous improvement in air quality. In 2021, the Portal for Regulation of Air Quality in Non-Attainment. Cities (PRANA) as a single point web-based tool for paperless project management, tracking physical and financial progress on clean air measures implementation.
The ban on single use plastic from 1 st July,2022 and the ban on plastic sheets with thickness more than 120 microns from 31 st December 2022 demonstrated bold environmental leadership, while the Jal Jeevan Mission launched the same year integrated water access with environmental sustainability.
India became one of the first countries in the world to develop a comprehensive India Cooling Action Plan which has a long-term vision to address the cooling requirement across sectors and lists out actions which can help reduce the cooling demand. Cooling requirement is cross sectoral and an essential part for economic growth and is required across different sectors of the economy such as residential and commercial buildings, cold-chain, refrigeration, transport and industries.
India ratified the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol on27th September 2021 for phase-down of Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), committing to complete phase-down in 4 steps from 2032 onwards with reductions of 10%, 20%, 30% and 85% in 2032, 2037, 2042 and 2047 respectively.
The Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act passed in 2022 established India's carbon credit trading scheme, creating market- based mechanisms for emissions reduction. The operationalization of our Carbon Credit Trading Scheme in 2023 under the Bureau of Energy Efficiency is a major milestone in creation of India’s first comprehensive carbon market. Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), announced by PM Modi at Glasgow on 1 st November 2021 during COP26 is another exemplary action promoting sustainable consumption patterns by nudging human behaviour.
Besides carbon credit, a positive intervention in the form of the Green Credit Programme was launched in 2023 during COP 28 at UAE for rewarding positive environmental actions thereby creating incentives for voluntary environmental stewardship. The full implementation of Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) emission norms nationwide in 2024 and the development of our Green Taxonomy framework for sustainable finance are some of the other initiatives which show India’s firm commitment to a cleaner and greener environment and how environmental governance can drive both technological advancement and financial innovation.
To promote the production and use of environment friendly and quality sustainable products, the Ministry notified the Ecomark Rules, 2024, under the E(P) Act, 1986, covering 17 broad categories with 80 sub-categories of products for encouraging sustainable production and consumption practices, with CPCB nominated as the key administrating agency.
The evolution of PARIVESH from its 2018 launch to PARIVESH 2.0 in 2024 with a modern decision support system incorporating GIS and an even better environmental assessment features exemplifies our commitment to continuous technological and qualitative improvements in environment management and monitoring. The integration of environmental clearances into the National Single Window System created a one-stop digital platform for business approvals, contributing to India's dramatic improvement in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business ranking from 142nd in 2014 to 63rd in 2020. Between 2014-2020, we granted environmental clearances to nearly 2,053 projects out of 2,115 applications, with markedly improved processing efficiency. To incentivize the industries towards adopting best practices in reducing effluent discharge and lessen the compliance burden, a new methodology was introduced to categorize industries. This scientific approach led to the classification of activities into Red, Orange, Green, White, and Blue categories. The innovative Blue category industries, representing environmentally positive activities like sewage treatment plants, composting units, biogas plants, and material recovery facilities.
As we move forward, our environmental governance framework continues to evolve with advanced AI capabilities, enhanced public participation mechanisms, and predictive environmental management systems. The recent developments in 2025, including enhanced digital monitoring systems and strengthened ESG reporting requirements, demonstrate our commitment to staying at the cutting edge. This decade-long journey from red tape to green innovation demonstrates what visionary leadership can achieve. Prime Minister Modi's approach of balancing environmental protection with economic development has created a governance model that serves multiple objectives simultaneously.
As we work toward India's goal of becoming Viksit Bharat@2047, the environmental governance framework that has been put in place over a decade provides a strong foundation for sustainable development.
