Assessment of Environmental Justice: The Case of Health in Ahmedabad

Abstract

Every citizen of India enjoys certain fundamental rights. Among many fundamental rights one such interpreted right is that everyone has right to live in healthy environment with access to enough environmental resources for a healthy life. This is the basic concept of environmental justice. Environmental justice addresses inequitable distribution of environmental burdens on minority and low-income communities. Due to injustice, the environmental problems bear down disproportionately upon the urban poor. While the rich can ensure that their children breathe cleaner air, that they are warm and well housed and that they do not suffer from polluted water supplies, those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder are less able to avoid the consequences of motor vehicle exhausts, polluting industry and power generation or the poor distribution of essential facilities. So, there is a need to assess such inequality in terms of health and environment in the city and provide adequate measures. The aim of the thesis is to create an environmental justice index by using indicators relevant in the Indian context. The objectives are to identify the vulnerable areas where the environmental burdens are more and less of environmental benefits and to study the health impacts of those vulnerable communities. The study tries to compare the relationship between physical infrastructure, environment and health and to highlight that certain community bear the disproportionate burden at the cost/burden of other. The first step was understanding the environmental justice concept and related terminology and develop its relevance in Indian context. After that the environmental benefits and burdens are mapped for the whole city which helped in understanding how it is distributed. It helped in identifying the vulnerable areas and communities for which detailed study was done on the health aspect of the people living there. A correlation test was also performed to prove the hypothesis that environmental burdens, environmental benefits and social vulnerability exhibits different spatial patterns. For the selected micro study area detail study was done on the negative impact on environment and health of the people because of the presence of disproportionate amount of environmental burdens in the vicinity. Based on the finding’s strategies are proposed which are area and type specific. iv The analysis of the distribution of goods and bads in the city shows that the eastern part of the city has more of environmental burdens and less of environmental benefits whereas the western part has more of benefits than burdens. Also, it was found that the residential density is higher on the eastern side thus making the environmental conditions worse. The health-related issues are also found to be worse on the eastern side of the city because of the presence of polluting industries and environmental burdens which harms the air and water quality of the area. The people living in vicinity breathe that polluted air and drink unsafe water which increases the risk of health issues. The thesis explores various ways and means to promote environmental justice in a city so that the city becomes more equitable and just. But it was found that in Indian context it may not be practical all the time to achieve equity. So, the focus was also on compensatory justice where and whenever the idea of distributive justice cannot be achieved. The community who are getting negatively affected or are going to get affected in the future because of the poor environmental quality needs to be incentivized or compensated for the loss of health or livelihood. The benefits provided to the host community are case and area specific which means it is different for community living close to solid waste dumping site, polluting industries and sewage treatment plant based on the impact zone of each facility and the kind of health and environmental impact it causes. Recommendations are multi-layered with policy initiatives, legislative changes, fiscal mechanism and other benefits to the people bearing the disproportionate distribution of burdens. It was seen that the host community compensation has a chance of success if it is also non-monetary rather than monetary alone. They are mitigative measures which will go long run and proves out to be more beneficial for the community. The study highlights the unequal distribution of environmental amenities & disamenities which has a negative externality on certain community or people at the cost of others which needs to be addressed. The environmental justice framework should be well incorporated in the Indian context from bottom to top level. The community bearing the burdens of environmental harms needs to be provided with some kind of compensation for the risks & health problem they have bear & also there should be meaningful recognition & participation of all community members in the decision-making process.