India aspires to a $5 trillion economy. It must factor the environment cost
Every country is obsessed with GDP or gross domestic product which is the market value of goods and services produced by labour and property located in that country during a year or part of it. The prosperity of a country is measured by the size of its GDP and its per person income. The world’s GDP in 2022, after accounting for inflation, was nearly $90 trillion, according to the World Bank, up from about $51 trillion in 2002.
India’s GDP in 2022 was nearly $3 trillion and we aspire to be a $5 trillion economy soon. The growth of our economy needs to be faster than that of the population — which has increased from 1.2 billion in 2011 to an estimated 1.4 billion. And it needs to be less unequal for the gains not to be cornered only by a few who are rich, but spread evenly so those in poverty are no longer poor and can live in some comfort.
The question, however, is at what cost? What important resources are we expending to boost GDP? This is where the idea of green GDP comes in.
Green GDP counts the value produced in a country taking into account the environmental costs. Those costs are hidden and may not be paid by the producers of goods and services. But they cannot be ignored for the price of is paid by society at large.
Take the case of Delhi.
The National Capital Territory (NCT) contributed 4 percent to the country’s GDP (adjusted for inflation) while having 1.52 percent of its population. Its average per person annual income at Rs 4.45 lakh is about two-and-a-half times the national average, though there are large numbers who earn a fraction of it. But the National Capital Region (NCR), which is the NCT and satellite cities, is also the most polluted urban agglomeration in the world.
The city has been
