With many traditional industries currently stagnated, India urgently needs an eco-friendly sector whose economic potential has not yet been fully realized

The rapidly spreading new strain of the COVID-19 virus indicates that the fight against the pandemic and its fallouts is far from over. The UK has announced a complete lockdown until mid-February in order to cut the spiralling infection rate, while India is also witnessing a sudden spurt in cases of the new strain in various States. These developments are bound to take a heavy toll on an already beleaguered economy. However, humanity has not lost hope and believes that the global economy will bounce back.

The socio-economic destruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic brought the Indian economy to its knees. Unemployment rose sharply from 6.7 per cent in March 2020 to 26 per cent in April 2020. This translates to nearly 140 million people losing their jobs in a shockingly short span of time. The same period also witnessed a fall in business activity from 82 per cent to 44 per cent, eventually followed by the largest-ever Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contraction of minus 24 per cent in the First Quarter of the Financial Year  2020-21.

In fact, India suffered a staggering loss of  Rs 32,000 crore per day during the first 21 days of the lockdown. These tremendous economic reverses need the intervention of innovative measures such as an increased focus on marginally leveraged areas such as the ‘Blue Economy.’

The World Bank defines the Blue Economy as sustainable use of the global oceanic resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and for sustaining a healthy ocean ecosystem. Originally coined by Belgian economist Gunter Pauli in 2010, the term ‘Blue Economy’ holds tremendous environmental and economic relevance for the Indian economy which holds fifth position in the world.

Judicious development of the Blue Economy is critical for the country’s efforts to revive its crippled fiscal health. This sector will not only help resurrect the comatose economy but can also lead to sustainable growth in the coming decade and beyond. With many traditional sectors currently stagnated and bogged down in the recession, India urgently needs an eco-friendly and long-term sector whose economic potential has not yet been fully realised.

The oceans abutting India’s nearly 7,000-km-long coastline have the capacity to provide just what the nation needs. According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, currently the Blue Economy in India comprises just 4.1 per cent of the GDP, which demonstrates the need to scale up this sector.

India already has robust traditional oceanic activities such as fisheries, tourism, maritime transport and so on. For the Blue Economy, the Government can increase its focus on certain emerging areas such as maritime renewable energy, seabed extractive activities, marine biotechnology and bioprospecting. Of all the avenues, bioprospecting is the most exciting because it has the potential to become a long-term economic resource as it involves eco-friendly exploration and harnessing of plant and animal species from which medicinal drugs, biochemicals and other commercially valuable material can be obtained. With a sea of opportunities waiting to be tapped, the Blue Economy can prove to be the next level of growth for India but at the same time, we need to exercise extreme caution in order to ensure that any harm to the environment or the delicate marine biodiversity is not only predicted beforehand but also avoided properly. For instance, bioprospecting can sometimes cause overharvesting of individual species which leads to their extinction. It causes immense damage to the environment as the role of any particular species in the ecosystem cannot be replicated by any other breed. The Government must also ensure that the private sector enterprises engaged in the Blue Economy abide by strict norms and regulations for safeguarding the marine ecosystem. Only then we will be able to have environmentally responsible economic growth for our nation.

As a first step towards leveraging the oceans for responsible economic growth, India needs to up the explorative extent of the oceans under its purview. This area definitely needs improvement. Furthermore, the achievements and potential of Blue Economy-related activities mostly go unreported which results in less awareness among the citizens and investors regarding its potentiality. Therefore, it does not attract private sector enterprises or investments and these conditions are detrimental to its development and growth.

The Blue Economy can turn the proverbial economic page for India as it entails multiple socio-economic benefits. It can not only help in livelihood generation, providing energy security and improving the health and prosperity of coastal communities but can also increase the ecological resilience of the oceans surrounding India. If piloted properly, the Blue Economic development drive will help India achieve its Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and also pave the way for marine sector services to assist the Indian economy to become a $10 trillion one by 2030. But careful planning and implementation are needed for these goals to be achieved. Oceans constitute over 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface and if their vast resources are harnessed with a sense of responsibility and due respect for the environment, they can provide infinite assets for our economy. India is gifted with abundant oceanic resources making it possible to power the country’s future with the aid of the Blue Economy.

(The writer is an environmental journalist. The views expressed are personal.)