Environmental Protection in India – An Overview

Abstract

This paper is main focus of the study environmental protection in India can be traced back to the period 320 and 300 BC. Our Constitutional commitment towards environmental protection and management of resources is very much enshrined in different Articles and Schedules of the Constitution. In the last three decades several legislations exclusively for pollution control and resources conservation and management have been enacted and special statutory bodies have been created for the effective implementation of these enactments. Even though there is a plethora of environmental legislations, many of these provisions remained on paper without much action taken by statutory authorities at the expected level due to obvious reasons. In a developing country like India which is confronted with a host a problems when it took off to newer heights of industrial development especially in the eighties and nineties, the legal regime had to adjust itself to different kinds of demands of a socio-economic nature without damaging the existing resources. Inevitably, the growth of environmental law had to strike a balance between ‘development’ and ‘sustainable development’. This is a phenomenon typical of a ‘rule of law’ society, where law becomes a dynamic instrument of change for a better environment.