With the resource crunch posing a major challenge, India needs to find new and additional financing avenues as well as technology to ensure sustainable development, the Economic Survey for 2012-13 has said.

“More often, it is the resource crunch which is the stumbling block for developing countries like India.

“While it takes effort to efficiently and expeditiously bring price signals and other policy instruments into play, India could do much more if new and additional finance and technology are made available through multilateral processes,” the Survey tabled in Parliament today said.

A host of issues including erratic weather and natural disasters along with poverty and hunger continue to be great concerns for policymakers, especially in the developing world.

Noting that India is on the right track in achieving environmental sustainability, the Survey said the country has the right enabling environment besides a number of achievements to its credit.

“However, the challenge while India is growing is to identify the key drivers and enablers of growth, be it infrastructure, the transportation sector, housing, or agriculture and to make these sectors grow sustainably,” the Survey said.

India has chalked out ambitious plans and policies to tackle climate change and environment issues.

“However, given the scarcity of resources and competing demands, finding the matching resources is a challenge,” it said.

Further, the report said though multilateral efforts on sustainable development and climate change have led to several positive outcomes, there are still areas of concern in terms of safeguarding the interests of developing countries in future deliberations.

“Be it national or global, environmental decline and global warming occurred gradually over decades and centuries, picking up pace with time. We must remember that the clock is now ticking on the needed global action to combat and contain this decay.

“This action should be fair, just and equitable for all countries so that the future we want will be a future in which there is ecological and economic space for sustainable development for all,” it said.

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