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Don't copy Western style of living blindly: Mammohan

     Mumbai: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here on Thursday that the western style of living of the modern consumerist societies could not be copied blindly in India as doing so would ensure prosperity for a few and misery for the many in the country. "Developing countries like India should avoid the development trajectory of the developed industrial economies because these have been far too wasteful and harmful to the environment," said Singh after giving Bombay Natural History Society Green Governance Award. "We have a challenge in devising growth paths developing options which can abolish poverty even without reaching the western standards of per capita income," he said. He pointed out that developing countries are often called upon to integrate environmental concerns into the processes of development itself. "This is now an accepted orthodoxy but, much work needs to be undertaken to operationalise the concept of sustainable development," he said. "Our economic life exerts enormous pressure on the growth process at a time when there is a clamour for jobs and new investment," added Singh.

    He emphasised on the need to operationalise sustainable development in concrete development strategies, which take into account imperatives of protecting and preserving the environment. "We cannot protect the environment by perpetuating the poverty of our people," he said. Expressing concern over the lack of environmental management paradigm of its own in the country the Prime Minister said that generally Western opinions about environmental crisis dominate and influence the solutions offered in our country. "The conservation of nature and protection of our environment is a collective task involving citizens at large, the corporate sector and all other stake-holders in our complex and diverse society," he said. "Our collective strategy, therefore, needs to focus on developing indigenous responses," he added. Referring to the ongoing public debate on Tribal Land Rights Bill, the Prime Minister said that the bill seeks to only record the rights of the people that have gone unrecorded to provide them a sense of security and involve them in protecting the natural resource base. "This cannot and will not be done at the cost of our environment," he said. Green Governance Award 2005 was given to Godrej and Boyce Manufacturing, Tata Chemicals and eight Mountain Division of Indian Army.