Traditional wisdom on environmental governance, captured through the Environment Kuznets curve, posits that countries grow first and clean up later. This empirical insight is informed by the experience of now developed countries which exploited the natural environment, at home and abroad, to feed the resource requirements of the growth process. But such luxury is not available to countries like India, which still need to grow rapidly to meet the development aspirations of their large population. When the NDA assumed office in 2014, the challenge was to accelerate growth and development on the cardinal principles of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi which is “Reform, Perform and Transform” without compromising with the rigour of environmental safeguards, wherever required, and providing a quantum jump to ease of doing business.

Today, as we stand in 2025, we have not only met this challenge but created a governance model that the world acknowledges. Prime Minister Modi’s vision was clear: transform this system into one that serves both “ecology and economy”. Our first major initiative was the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014, which went beyond cleanliness to establish a comprehensive framework for waste management and environmental stewardship. This mission demonstrated our commitment to integrating environmental concerns with social development. It was launched as a mass movement involving all citizens and raising the demand for a cleaner, more resourceefficient India.

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The National Air Quality Index was launched soon after, providing real-time air quality monitoring across cities to the citizens in a transparent manner The Make in India initiative, also launched in 2014, incorporated stringent environmental compliance standards, proving that we could promote manufacturing at a much faster scale and speed while maintaining ecological integrity. The Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) Scheme in 2015 was expanded to promote energy efficiency and include more energy-intensive industries, creating a market-based mechanisms for energy efficiency. From 2016 onwards, all key waste management rules are being regularly updated for effective waste management, enhancing resource efficiency and fostering a circular economy. The foundational principle of this approach is a reliance on marketbased mechanisms and the extended producer responsibility framework based on the “polluter pays principle”. The Plastic Waste management Rules, the E-waste Management Rules, the Tyre,........

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