Uttarakhand tops Planning Commission's green ranking


Uttarakhand has been rated top in the Plan Panel's green ranking based on quality of air and water, waste management, forest cover and climate change.

NEW DELHI: Uttarakhand has been rated top in the Planning Commission's green ranking based on quality of air and water, waste management, forest cover and climate change.

The panel lists Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Sikkim and Andhra Pradesh as the other top four states on its Environmental Performance Index, which will serve as a measure of a state's green initiative and be linked to financial assistance from the Centre.

The index was prepared after the government in 2010 decided to rework the Gadgil-Mukherjee formula for determining central assistance to states to include an environmental parameter.

Environment performance will account for 2% of a state's overall performance. The measure is meant to be both an incentive and compensation to states for green initiatives. For allocating funds tied to environmental performance, the government has two options. The first is to devolve 2% of the gross budgetary support on the basis of the performance index. The second is to allocate funds by giving an additional weightage of 2% to the performance criteria of the Gadgil formula.

The index, which gives equal weightage to each of the five parameters for environmental performance, lists Mizoram, Kerala, Goa, Sikkim, Tripura and Puducherry as the best performing states with regard to air quality.

A state's performance on air quality is based on its deviation from target amounts of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur oxides (SOx) and respirable suspended particulate material (RSPM) in the atmosphere.

Performance on water is based on waste management and sewage disposal, water quality determined as the biochemical oxygen demand in local rivers, and the coliform count.

According to the panel, Himachal Pradesh is the only state to have set up 100% capacity in sewage treatment. The performance of the other states in this regard ranges from no effort to about 20%. Not only is the performance on sewage disposal dismal, the total fecal coliform is as high as 92%. The states that show a semblance of having adhered to the prescribed river-water quality are Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry. Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab, Diu and Daman, and Puducherry extract more water than they recharge, according to the index.

Chhattisgarh outperforms all states in waste management. It collects 98% of the municipal solid waste, treats 100% of the biomedical waste and has capacity to dispose 89% of hazardous waste.

In keeping with India's efforts to counter climate change, increase in forest cover is considered as in input. Chandigarh, Sikkim