“The lack of political will in preventing environmental degradation is one of the major challenges that India is experiencing.” Comment.

The statement is largely accurate, but the deficit is structural rather than a matter of individual failing.

Why the will is weak.

• Costs are immediate and concentrated; benefits are deferred and diffuse. A closed polluting unit costs identifiable jobs before the next election; cleaner air accrues to everyone slowly and to no constituency in particular.
• The victims are politically weak. Those worst hit by degraded air, water and forests are the poor, and environmental harm rarely determines votes.
• Growth is the competing mandate. Clearances become a measure of ease of doing business, so regulation is read as an obstacle to investment.
• Institutional under-capacity is a choice. State Pollution Control Boards run with vacancies and inadequate laboratories, and the Environment Impact Assessment process has been diluted by post-facto clearances that reward violation.

The evidence of the deficit. Air quality in the Indo-Gangetic plain remains far above national standards despite a national clean air programme; stubble burning recurs each winter because no government wishes to bear the farmer's cost; groundwater is extracted past recharge because free or near-free power is electorally untouchable; and India relaxed thermal plant emission deadlines repeatedly.

But the picture is not uniform. Political will has been visible where the environmental goal aligned with another interest — the CNG transition in Delhi under Supreme Court direction, the ban on leaded petrol, the LPG expansion that reduced indoor pollution, and the renewable energy build-out, which succeeded because it became cheaper than coal.

Conclusion. Environmental protection advances in India when it is made to coincide with jobs, health costs or energy prices, and stalls when it is presented as a sacrifice. Designing that alignment is the real task.