“Sustainable Development”: Challenges and Suggestions

As the fastest growing major economy of the world today, India is uniquely placed to deliver on its commitments to inclusive and sustainable development. Externally, the country has played a key role in shaping the SDGs and ensuring the balance among its three pillars – economic, social and environmental. Internally, it has launched many programmes to make progress towards these goals. India has played an important role in shaping the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, it is no surprise that the country’s national development goals are mirrored in the SDGs. As such, India has been effectively committed to achieving the SDGs even before they were fully crystallized. The expression “Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas,” which translates as “Collective Effort, Inclusive Growth” and has been popularized by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, forms the cornerstone of India’s national development agenda. To fast track this agenda, the Government of India has just released a draft Three-Year Action Agenda covering years 2017-18 to 2019-20. Sustainable development is the need of hour in every country as the over usage and wastage of resources at large extent has made this very concept an urgency to be implemented. Faster progress towards the sustainable development will require new models in which the people must have a much greater say in governance. This paper thus tries to analyze the various challenges and the broad sustainable suggestions which need to be emphasized on priority basis.