Should States be able to reject Centre-mandated environmental frameworks? Discuss.

Karnataka's Assembly resolution rejecting the Kasturirangan report "in its present form" revives an old federal question. Environment is a Concurrent subject, yet ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs) are notified by the Centre under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 [2]. States deserve a decisive voice in design — not a veto over the framework.

The case for State resistance

• Burden asymmetry: bans on mining, quarrying, polluting industry and large construction hit State revenues and local livelihoods, while the notifying power sits with the Centre [1][2].
• Scale mismatch: the High Level Working Group mapped roughly 37% of the Ghats (~60,000 sq km) as sensitive using satellite and remote-sensing imagery [1]; a coarse revenue-village unit pulls farms and settlements inside an ESA even where only a fraction is fragile.
• Federal principle: land, agriculture and forests-on-the-ground are administered by States; consent-based implementation prevents conservation from being experienced as harassment.

Why an outright veto is untenable

• Legally, Section 3 of the EPA vests notification power in the Centre [2]; an Assembly resolution is recommendatory, not binding.
• Ecologically, the Ghats span six States — a single opt-out breaks a continuous ecosystem.
• Practically, rejection yields nothing. Successive draft notifications since 2014 have produced no final one [3], leaving only interim directions in force while quarrying and hill-slope construction continue — a governance gap the 2024 Wayanad landslides brutally exposed [4].
• Constitutionally, Article 48A and the public trust doctrine bind States equally to protect ecology.

The real choice is between veto and voice. States should contest boundaries from inside the framework — completing ground-truthing and drawing sub-village lines that separate farmland from fragile slopes [3] — while the Centre refreshes dated imagery, grades restrictions by zone rather than imposing a uniform rule, and pairs notification with Forest Rights Act settlement and gram sabha consent. Cooperative federalism, and SDG 15, are served when States bargain within the framework, not walk out of it.