Cement, Energy and Environment July-Sep 2002

the far-sighted premi se that home– owners inva ri abl y become law– abid ing citizens and responsible members ofsociety with a real stake in community welfare. It is time India adopted that philosophy. Our vision should be to provide not onl y housing for all by 20 10 but also a living environment conducive to character-building. The onl y way to achieve this is to j etti son outmod ed laws . Al l enabling legislation needs to be put 1n pl ace fo r harne ss ing good developers attracting investments, even from abroad . We believe that if the vision is there, the means will follow. It is strange the housing sector has been accorded neither industry statu s nor infrastructure priority. The multiplier effect of growth of housing has not been given the conside ra ti on it warrants, even though it is known to be an axiom, as has been borne out even by the latest McKinsey Report. Housing is the largest employment generator. For example, the construction of every one million housing units per year would create 5 million man– years of di rect employment and 7.5 mi llion man-yea rs of indirect employment. Housing can and should be harnessed as an engine of economic growth. It isn' t just a matter of deve lop ing land and constructing housing uni ts . Our thought processes have to be geared towards deve loping a soc iety . A soc iety inhab ited by those who broadl y share common va lues, have more or less similar needs, and believe in qua li ty of \vork and life. Urban renaissance is an idea whose time has come. A vision document or White Paper on what kind of urban environment we wish to bequeath to ou r futu re c iti ze ns, is long overd ue. Bu ildi ng citi es means nation-buil ding, character-building. That was DLF credo back in 1947. Pa rtiti on was coming and th e Group- parti cul a rl y its founder, Chaudhary Ragvendra Singh could see that the influx ofrefugees would need new loca liti es for rehabilitation. The day that, as in man y developed countries, the number of "New House Starts" is treated as one ofthe basic economic indicators to measure th e hea lth o f the economy. 1 sha ll beg in to feel confident that India is on the right path to national development. Courtesy: indian Cons/rue/ion, .lui 02, Pp 23-24 Fax: 022- ./950507 E-mail: bai@vsnl.com Web: www.buildersindia.com A DUTY TO SAVE THE WORLD, WITHOUT THE RIGIITTO SURVIVE Anju Sharma The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) may not finally amount to much, but the preparatory meetings for the summit have reopened old scabs that received on ly hasty treatment at Rio. Quite clearly; many of the diffe rences he ld by Northe rn 'envi ronm ental ' groups and Southern ' development' group are as strong as ever. Many Western groups sti ll see it as their duty to rescue the South from development - at any cost to the South , it seems. Unable to do mu ch to change attitud es to development in their own countries, they are quick to waggle a finger at their Southern counterpa1t s saying, "No, no, development is bad for yo u.'' In stead, they point to the section of the store that sells the mirage of sustainable development. '·Look, here's something healthy." Of course most of them pointedl y ignore the pn ce label. Acknowledging that sustainable deve lopment costs more money would require them to get their own gove rnments to at least meet the financial commitments they have made. Thi s they arc pla inl y not capab le o f do ing, as th ey have proved over the last so many years. They fi nd it much simpler to deal with Southern governments than their o•vn governme nts, because Southern governments can be ann– tw isted th ro ugh conditi ona lit ies from Northern-dominated fi nancial insti tu tions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to do their bidding. It is fo r this reason that the ' right to deve lopment,' which was agreed to as an inalienable human right by the UN General Assembly in 1986, is still an issue of debate in the draft doc ument that will be accepted at Johannesburg. Like their governments, many Northern groups veheme nt ly oppose any sugg_estion that all na tions should ha ve a ri ght to deve lopment. According to these groups, giving Southern nat ions th e righ t to development would translate into giving them a ' right to pollute.' The most they are wi lling to concede is a ' right to sustainable development. ' In other words, developing countries can meet the needs of their people- but with restrictions. These restrictions take away a right, and instead replace it with a duty. To begin with, any 'right to sustainable development' wilI not reflect the fac t th at unli ke industrial ised countries, Southern nations have not yet used up their sha re of g loba l env ironmen tal space. So to be fair, they should stiII have a right to development. wh ile it is the industrialised countries that should have th e rest r ic tion of susta inab le development placed upon them. The ri ght to development, which encompasses the ri ght to equal access to all resources, fa r better articulatcs the right of developing coun tries to grow in the co nventio na l development model untiI they have used up their environmental space (o r until thP world commu nity '