Urbanisation And Ecological Balance - Constitutional Mandates For Sustainable Environmental Governance In India
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Category: Constitutional & Human Rights
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URBANISATION AND ECOLOGICAL BALANCE:
CONSTITUTIONAL MANDATES FOR SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN INDIA
Nithin Rajeev, Assistant Professor, Dayananda Sagar University
ABSTRACT
India’s cities are experiencing unprecedented demographic and spatial growth, accompanied by a steep rise in environmental pressures. Rapid urbanisation—driven by industrial expansion, migration from rural regions, and population concentration—has brought both economic opportunity and ecological strain. The Global Cities Report identifies India as home to 17 of the world’s 20 fastest-growing urban centres, while United Nations forecasts suggest Delhi will be the most populous city by 2028, with the country adding the largest number of urban residents by 2050. These trends pose significant risks to air quality, resource availability, and public health, challenging the constitutional guarantee under Article 21 to a life of dignity in a clean and healthy environment.
India’s environmental commitments are embedded not only in a series of statutes—the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972; Water Act, 1974; Forest Conservation Act, 1980; Air Act, 1981; and Environment Protection Act, 1986—but also in the Constitution itself, through Articles 48A and 51A(g) introduced by the Forty-Second Amendment. Nevertheless, weak enforcement, fragmented urban planning, and inadequate infrastructure have fuelled deforestation, waste accumulation, water and air pollution, heat stress, and unregulated settlement growth. This paper argues for an urgent recalibration of urban policy to integrate ecological priorities, recommending stronger legal compliance mechanisms, fiscal and regulatory incentives, and greater public engagement to ensure that urban growth strengthens, rather than undermines, environmental resilience.
I.
Introduction
Urbanisation refers to general increase in population and the amount of industrialisation of a settlement. It includes increase in the number and extent of cities. It symbolises the movement of people from rural to urban areas. Urbanisation in India is characterised by unplanned and uncontrolled growth leading to urban sprawl. The Global Cities Report indicates that the Seventeen of the 20 fastest growing cities in the world will be from India. Along with that the new United Nations Estimates also throws light regarding the fact that Delhi is projected to become the most populous city in the world by 2028 and India is expected to add the largest number of urban dwellers by 2050. All these have created a new found intricacies of its effect on the environment. A healthy and clean environment is an essential aspect of the right to life.
It includes the right to survive as species, quality of life, right to live with dignity and the right to livelihood. This has been recognised as a Constitutional right under Article 21. Article 21 being the most interpreted Article in the Constitution recognise most of the unarticulated liberties for an integrated environment. Environment and life are interrelated and the existence of life on earth depends on the harmonious relationship between ecosystem and environment. 1 Every individual, from the moment of his birth, acquires certain rights. One such right is the right to live in a clean environment.
The Indian parliament passed many statutes to protect and improve the environment including the Wildlife protection Act, 1972; Water (prevention and control of pollution) Act, 1974; the forest (conservation) Act, 1989; the air (prevention and control of pollution) Act, 1981 and above all the Environment (protection) Act, 1986. Further the Constitutional (forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976 incorporated two significant articles, Article 48-A and 51 A(g) thereby making the Indian Constitution the first in the world to confer Constitutional status to the area of environment protection. The first milestone reflecting an international consensus on the nature and scope of the environment challenge confronting world community was the Stockholm Conference. The declaration does not provide for the definition of environment.
The main gist of the declaration is the “man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and wellbeing and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generation. ” The conference takes into account
1 SHYAM DIVAN & ARMIN ROSENCRANZ, Environmental Law and Policy in India 58–59 (2d ed. 2012).
the fact that the environment may challenge the very existence of mankind as it has an immense impact on the life of human kind and sustainable modification or harm. With the increased sheer magnitude of the urban population, haphazard and unplanned. growth of urban areas, and a desperate lack of sustainable infrastructure have a tremendous impact on space, environment and quality of life in India. This often give rise to exploitation of natural resources, air pollution, noise pollution, unusual rise in temperature, management of solid waste, sewage system, deforestation and development of slums. It is true that cities can be tremendously efficient. It is easier to provide water and sanitation to people living closer together, while access to health, education, and other social and cultural services is also much more readily available.
However, as cities grow, the cost of meeting basic needs increases, as does the strain on the environment and natural resources2. To avoid burden on cities, urban planning (urban, city and town planning) has to be efficiently done as well as effectively implemented. The modern origins Urbanisation refers to general increase in population and the amount of industrialisation of a settlement. It includes increase in the number and extent of cities. It symbolises the movement of people from rural to urban areas. II.
Urbanisation and its influence in India Urbanisation happens because of the increase in the extent and density of urban areas. Due to uncontrolled urbanisation in India, environmental degradation has been occurring very rapidly and causing many problems like land insecurity, worsening water quality, excessive air pollution, noise and the problems of waste disposal. The modern origins of urban planning lie in the movement for urban reform that arose as a reaction against the disorder of the industrial planning in the mid- 19th century which increased to fifteen per cent in 19th century and to forty nine per cent in 20th century. India has yet to join the urban century, as India is still a mosaic of 500,000 villages with sixty per cent of the population dependent on agriculture. The urban population of India is growing at a much faster rate than the overall rate of population growth.
Many people are moving to cities in relation with increased opportunities and the availability of infrastructure facilities. However, facilities are way behind and a bottleneck to this rapid growth and consequently there has been an infrastructure crunch in many big cities in India. It is time to reflect on the state of human settlements and people’s basic right to decent and affordable shelter. Every one of us deserves the opportunity for a better future, and that a decent
2 MOHAMMAD NASEEM, Environmental Law 156–57 (1st ed. 2011).
place to live can remove barriers to opportunity, health and success. Every one also has the right to the city. By 2000, more than half of the world’s population was living in an urban area, and it is forecasted that by 2050, more than two-thirds will be living in cities. According to the UN World Urbanisation prospects 2018, about 34% of the country’s population lives in urban areas. However, more than one-third of them live in slums with poor access to housing, water and sanitation. 3 Since 2005, there has been an unprecedented mobilisation of central and state funds into the urban areas, much of it directed at improving housing, tenure security, and access to services for the urban poor. Yet, nearly two decades later, it is not clear that these investments have been effective at achieving their stated goals.
Large numbers of the urban poor, even in the best performing cities, continue to live without water connections, toilets, and land title and also, we have cities challenged with poor waste disposal, shrinking water bodies and degrading ecology. There is lack of access to basic human rights and interrogate the role of legal and institutional frameworks that preclude many from their right to the city. III.
Through The Troubled Lungs of Delhi and Its Impact on The Indian Conscience As in the case of our national capital in November 2018, pollution levels reached 20 times the recommended World Health Organisations safe limit for air pollution. It’s been caused by growing volumes of traffic, construction and industrial activity, the burning of rubbish and crops, the use of fireworks during religious festivals and weather patterns which can trap polluted air in the lower atmosphere for long periods of time. There have been various measures adopted in recent years by the municipal authorities in Delhi to tackle pollution: converting vehicles to cleaner fuel, restricting vehicle use at specific times, banning the use of polluting. Industrial fuel, prohibiting the entry of the dirtiest vehicles in to the city and closing some power stations.
And there have also been measures taken by the national government, such as opening two major periphery roads east and west of Delhi to take heavy goods traffic away from the capital- as well as introducing new fuel emissions standards. There is a need for fair and equitable urbanisation if we wish to make our cities sustainable. It has to be stressed that we cannot depend on technological miracles to solve our air pollution problems. We must redefine mobility if we wish to have clean breathing air. The impending question here is the link of urbanisation with climate change, and how it is unequal in the effects it has on the different strata of the society. It was found that the urban labourers, who are directly working in the
3 World Urbanisation Prospects 2018.
polluting industries, contribute the least to urban pollution and yet, suffer the most. It was also found that urbanisation has drastic impacts on land use changes, irrigation patterns, and ground water tables, which again harms the sections of urban society who are directly dependent on groundwater for their survival. Thus, for planning smart cities, social cohesive indicators, which measure the trust people have on each other, along with the climate change impact need to be studied in detail before proposing policy recommendations. 4 A positive finding was that the concern about safety and non- toxicity of our food has led to the introduction of organic farming in many Indian cities. Many households in urban areas are increasingly taking up urban agriculture to ensure good quality food products.
This trend to bring back the primary rural activity of food production in the urban spaces is yet another dimension of urban India’s growing need to improve quality of life. There are challenges of urban governance, for both water and air pollution in the cities. It was felt that there is a lack of accountability mechanisms for urban commons, and that the poor were disproportionately affected by pollution. It is imperative that the technological advancements are often ignored by city planners, and should be integrated more to ensure better air and water quality in the cities. A crucial aspect of urbanisation that we disregard is the waste economy, which includes everything from the rad- pickers of the informal economy to the big incinerators being operated by the municipality.
The waste economy needs much more detailed analysis in terms of the biophysical and toxic material transformations, private gains and transactions, economic costs, social biases and political vested interests. 5 Another significant aspect urbanisation that we tend to overlook is our one-way dependence on rural India, which creates massive inequalities. We need deeper political understanding of resource valuation and power relationships for policy makers to draft proposals which take into account both the urban and the rural environment. 6 IV.
Evolution of Environmental Jurisprudence The term ‘environment’ cannot be defined precisely as it is linked with many subjects like ecology, biology, geography physiology, psychology etc. But, in the layman terms, environment can be defined as the surroundings like natural resources, atmosphere, water bodies, etc in which an individual or an organism lives. According to Einstein, “the
4 PHILIPPE SANDS, Principles of International Environmental Law (2d ed. 2012).
5 HARMEET SINGH SANDHU, Revamping Environmental Education Perspective 108 (2d ed. 2008).
6 Eric Posner, Impacts of Urbanisation on Environment, ResearchGate (July 20, 2025, 10:40 PM),
https://www. researchgate. net/posts/123341458. html. environment is everything that isn’t me. ” The resources form an important part of an individual’s life. Not only individuals but also animals are dependent on the environment to fulfil their needs. Man is constantly interacting with the environment in order to fulfil his needs. These needs include the basic needs of oxygen, food and shelter in addition to the social needs like entertainment, medicines, etc. Modern environmental jurisprudence in India is essentially developed through the legislative awakening post Bhopal gas tragedy, adoption of Stockholm and Rio Conventions by India and creative interpretation of Article 21 by the Indian judiciary.
Incorporation of right to pollution free environment or clean environment in right to life in Article 21 of the Indian Constitution is an important facet of modern environmental jurisprudence in India. It is believed that right to clean environment belongs to third generation of human rights, based on the principle of solidarity. Therefore, cooperation is needed at all levels to secure effectively right to clean environment to all. Right to clean environment has become a part of right to life and is accepted as a human right and also a fundamental right. Interestingly the Constitution of India in its original form was environmentally myopic. But judicial activism and foresight of the Apex Court and different High Courts has given a new vision and dimension to environmental protection through fundamental rights. V.
Indian Judiciary and the right to the environment. The Indian judiciary has progressively widened the ambit of Article 21, transforming it from a narrow guarantee of life and personal liberty into a constitutional foundation for environmental protection. Through a series of landmark judgments, courts have recognised that the right to life necessarily includes the right to a healthy, pollution-free environment, ecological balance, and access to resources essential for human dignity. In Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra v. State of Uttar Pradesh7, the Supreme Court ordered the closure of limestone quarries in the Mussoorie Hills, holding that environmental degradation threatened the public’s right to live in a healthy setting. The Court reaffirmed this position in Charan Lal Sahu v.
Union of India8, where it observed, in the context of the Bhopal Gas Leak disaster, that pollution-free surroundings fall within the ambit of Article 21.
7 Rural Litigation & Entitlement Kendra v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 1985 Supp SCC 79 (India).
8 Charan Lal Sahu v. Union of India, (1990) 1 SCC 613 (India).
In Virender Gaur v. State of Haryana9, the right to life was interpreted to include ecological preservation, clean air, potable water, and sanitation as prerequisites for human dignity. Similarly, the Andhra Pradesh High Court in T. Damodar Rao v. Special Officer, Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad10 described environmental pollution as “slow poisoning” that undermines life itself. The Rajasthan High Court in L. K. Koolwal v. State of Rajasthan11 upheld citizens’ entitlement to demand state action on sanitation and environmental maintenance, while the Karnataka High Court in V. Lakshmipathy v. State of Karnataka12 declared a clean environment to be a basic human right. Precautionary restrictions on mining were endorsed in Soman v. Geologist13, recognising community rights to a decent environment, and R. S. Verma v.
State of Rajasthan14 further clarified that Article 21 ensures a “life worth living,” which requires environmental preservation for physical and mental well-being. Collectively, these rulings have embedded environmental protection within India’s constitutional framework, making it clear that the right to life is inseparable from the right to live in conditions that sustain health, dignity, and ecological stability. VI.
Case Studies on Environmental Litigation: Aarey Forest and Maradu Demolition The evolution of the right to the environment and its interrelationship with development and urbanisation found an immediate stop at the Aarey case. The Supreme Court restrained authorities from cutting anymore trees in Mumbai’s Aarey to set up a Metro car shed. Aarey colony, popularly known as the green lung of Mumbai is a suburban area located in Goregaon. This region has more than five lakh trees combining the Sanjay Gandhi national park. While a project for the construction of a new car shed is on the way, a lot of trees are being cut to give room for the said metro project. It is in this context the apex court have imposed a barrier from cutting down the future as the Aarey forest was deemed as an “unclassified forest” by the state government and felling of trees was illegal.
9 Virender Gaur v. State of Haryana, (1995) 2 SCC 577 (India).
10 T. Damodar Rao v. Special Officer, Municipal Corp. of Hyderabad, AIR 1987 AP 171 (India).
11 L.K. Koolwal v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1988 Raj 2 (India).
12 V. Lakshmipathy v. State of Karnataka, ILR 1999 KAR 3908 (India).
13 Soman v. Geologist, 2010 (3) KLT 413 (India).
14 R.S. Verma v. State of Rajasthan, AIR 1988 Raj 8 (India).
Setting a precedent for environment regulation, the Supreme Court ordered the Kerala government to ensure compliance of its previous order for demolishing of high- rise apartments in Maradu in Kerala which were constructed in violation of coastal regulation zone norms. The case, which has been fought for over 13 years in multiple courts, is back in the limelight after the Supreme Court issued a directive to demolish the apartments home to around 400 families. The judgements come at a time when there is heightened awareness and conversations on climate change and the exacerbating effect of human activities on it. The judges citing the recent floods in Uttarakhand, Chennai and Kerala, said that uncontrolled construction activities in critically vulnerable coastal areas (classified as CRZ- III) would have devastating effects on the natural water flow.
The apex court noted that the construction activities were done on the shores of the backwaters which “supports exceptionally large biological diversity and constitutes one of the largest wetlands in India. VII.
Conclusion
Some of the main causes of damage to the environment due to urbanisation lies in the legislation and the regulating agencies of the country. Failure of governance in today’s cities has resulted in the growth of informal settlements and slums that constitute unhealthy living and working environment. Serious attention should be given to the need for improving urban strategies, which promote efficiency in the resource use. Urgent attention should be given to reduce the generation of solid waste at the sources through mandatory standards and regulation fee and tax incentives, education and voluntary compliance. However, the basic issues relating to environmental rights have not been properly addressed by the judiciary as well as the government.
With the intricacies involved in ecological and human rights issues, the means of implementation of orders in ecological matters are also superficial. In this backdrop for the vast majority the right to life with human dignity and clean environment becomes a kind of daydreaming. The displacement of poor and downtrodden from their land, culture and value system during the development process needs to be taken more seriously by the court and the government. Apart from this, there is a duty that is cast upon the country’s young generation which we must exercise profusely. With our unrestrained potential and never-ending influence this is something that we have to do individually for a new possibility that will be imprinted upon the new world.