The Role of Government in Protecting the Environment

In one line

The government's environmental role has four parts, and a complete answer takes them in order: a constitutional duty, a legislative power, an administrative machinery, and a record of what that machinery has actually achieved.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the role of government in the protection of the environment rests on the duty in Article 48A to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life of the country; on the legislative competence distributed by Article 246 and extended by Article 253; on the executive machinery of the Ministry, the Pollution Control Boards and the specialised authorities; and on the statutory powers those bodies exercise, principally under section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986.

Why this chapter exists

Because MU asks the question in six wordings across seven papers, and a candidate should have one structure that answers all of them.

• "State the Role of government in environment protection and suggest what should be the appropriate policy" (2016).
• "What should be the Role of government in conservation and proteciton of environment ? Discuss" (2015).
• "Role of government in conservation and protection of environment" (2019, short note).
• "Explain the role of government and conservation strategies for the protection of forests in India" (2022).
• "Critically analyse the role of government in the protection of environment in the light of Municipal Council, Ratlam v. Shri Vardhichand" (2022).
• "Conservation of Forests : Role of Government" (2022, short note).
• "Explain the role of government in the conservation of forest in India" (2024).

Three of the seven are about forests, and the chapter on the government and the forests answers those. One is about Ratlam, and that is a question about the enforceability of a municipality's duty, answered in module IV. The rest are general, and this chapter is for them.

The four parts

One: the duty

Article 48A. The State shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard the forests and wild life of the country.

Article 51A(g) places the corresponding duty on the citizen.

Neither is enforceable as such, and the chapter on the Directive Principles in module IV explains the four ways in which the courts have nevertheless made them matter. For this chapter the point is that the government's role begins with a constitutional direction rather than with a policy choice.

Two: the power

Article 246 and the Seventh Schedule distribute legislative competence. Public health, sanitation, water and land are State subjects; forests and the protection of wild animals and birds are in the Concurrent List since 1976 as entries 17A and 17B; and inter-State rivers are a conditional Union subject under entry 56 of the Union List.