Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion that India’s development is ‘speedy as well as sustainable’ is aligned with the country’s outlook based on its nationally determined contributions (NDC) for 2031-35. It explains why he pointed out the inequality meted out to developing countries at the climate negotiations table. The PM flagged the historical narrative that developed countries get away with six times higher emissions, but developing nations take the blame for their carbon footprints. Listing out achievements in renewable energy, electric mobility, water conservation and natural farming, Modi said the country, having achieved its Paris Agreement commitments made in 2015, enjoys a unique position within the G20 on non-fossil fuels and solar capacity benchmarks.
When the government approved the NDC for submission to the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change in March, it carefully designed its targets amid the West Asia crisis. India has achieved its goals on emission intensity and energy transition. But if it truly wants to demonstrate that rapid growth can coexist with environmental responsibility, it must take plastic pollution seriously. Government data put India’s plastic waste generation at 1.76 million tonne in 2024-25, down from 4.1 million tonne in 2022-23. However, the estimate is conservative given it mostly counted urban areas. A Central Pollution Control Board assessment in 2018 had measured plastic waste generation at 25,940 tonne a day, almost 9.5 million tonne annually. That’s the kind of level a study published in Nature echoed in 2024 when it placed India as the top plastic polluter far ahead of China, holding it accountable for nearly a fifth of global plastic emissions.
The enormity of the challenge before India is that plastic has entered every aspect of life and its cost is huge. Some progress has been reported. Under the extended producer responsibility, the government claims 19.6 million tonnes of plastic waste was recycled through registered processors by March 2026. But it is a cumulative figure and recycling alone cannot solve the Himalayan problem at hand.
The Prime Minister is right that development and sustainability can go hand in hand. But plastic will be a real test of that proposition. A sustainable India cannot merely recycle. It must produce far less, design packaging for reuse and recovery, improve waste collection and make producers accountable for the entire lifecycle of what they sell. For that, implementation, collection and enforcement remain critical.