As climate risks move from the woods to towns, India needs an environmental corps to help with planning, enforcement, and regulation.
For the past few months, Indian teens and young adults have been making waves on Instagram by protesting rising smog, worsening air quality, and cutting down trees for building projects. More and more people are talking about the loss of green areas, walking paths and clean beaches, rather than the Indian growth story as shown in buildings.
A population of more than 1.4 billion people makes it hard to push for faster GDP growth. It’s like trying to cheer for an elephant to win a race.
The Economic Survey 2026
The Economic Survey 2026 shows that controlling woods, waterways, and coasts alone is no longer enough to make communities resilient and able to respond to climate change. They must be built into the business and economic systems that keep people working and cities alive, it said. The poll shows that the way our natural resources have been handled in the past needs to change. We need to stop using separate and short term methods and start using a more holistic and long term strategy.
Since 1867, the Indian Forest Service (IFS) has been in charge of a lot of natural resources, such as forests, waterways, and animals. India’s environmental disaster, on the other hand, is happening outside of forests right now. There are plenty of administrative and regulatory bodies in cities, industrial zones, and peri urban areas. However, there are still dirty bodies of water, untreated waste dumps, and contaminated groundwater outside of all homes. This is causing more cancer cases—about 15 lakh each year—to occur.
The people who work for IFS need to rethink their part in the current climate disaster and give the Indian Environment Services a new look. Officers must also take action on a bigger picture playing out across the country that affects many people and isn’t just about managing woods.
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Spread out responsibility
The issue with scary pollution stories is not that people are trying to be harmful, but that there isn’t a single environmental authority that can be held responsible. India is stuck in a circle of damage, lawsuits, partial repair, and general decline in natural health. This is mostly because institutions are broken up and people are not responsible for their actions.
Regional offices of pollution control boards keep an eye on pollution levels and what causes them in almost all states. However, they don’t always have the power to enforce the law. For example, they don’t always have the power to directly file FIRs; that job is usually done by Nagar Palika/Urban Improvement Trusts and SDM offices. The District Environment Committees, which are led by District Magistrates, only meet sometimes and send problems to different offices. It is up to urban local bodies like Nagar Palika/UITs to handle trash, garbage, and air quality in the short run, but they don’t have the technical know-how to do it.
These gaps have made courts step in, especially for rivers and other areas of water that are getting backed up. But the Yamuna River hasn’t changed much over the years, even with years of protest, action plans, and court oversight. It’s mostly still an open drain that gets dirty sewage and industrial waste water.
One example is the Jojeri and Luni rivers in Rajasthan’s Thar area, which flow with seasonal water and carry textile industry trash that pollutes the air we breathe, aquifers, and farmlands. People are driven to leave ghettos that are very dirty, and there are about 88 to 100 of them in the country.
The sad truth is that only a small portion of the businesses are allowed, and PCBs may check to see if they are breaking environmental laws. As a result of the need for vote bank politics in a democracy, most of these businesses are not listed and are part of the unorganised sector.
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There should be an Indian Environment Service
However, the higher judiciary has often used Articles 21 and 48A of the Constitution to tell states how to protect people’s right to a healthy environment, but this only happens sometimes and in response to problems. Even if billions of dollars are spent on fixing things, the government is usually busy with everyday tasks, and because they don’t know how to do things technically, following court orders is usually slow and just for show.
Even though the courts should get involved, protecting the environment should be done through preventative rules made by institutions, not through lawsuits. When Scandinavian countries put money into integrated environmental governments, they got rid of trash systems, cleaned up urban waterways, and divided sewage treatment.
That being said, isn’t it time for India to think about starting its own environmental service? A group of highly skilled executives with a background in environmental law who act as the link between oversight groups like PCBs and agencies that put plans into action.
A group of officials who can make a real difference in long term city or town planning to make the best use of natural resources and lessen the effects of environmental dangers caused by climate change.
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