Which of the following Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) will target to water availability for all and its permanent management upto 2030 in India ?

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, SDG 6. Goal 6 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reads 'Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all', and the question's phrasing — 'water availability for all and its permanent management' — is very nearly a word-for-word rendering of it, with 'permanent' standing in for 'sustainable'. Goal 6's targets run wider than drinking water alone: universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water (target 6.1) and to adequate sanitation with an end to open defecation (target 6.2), both by 2030, plus water quality and wastewater treatment, water-use efficiency, integrated water resources management, protection of water-related ecosystems, international cooperation and the participation of local communities. In India the programmes that report against Goal 6 are the Jal Jeevan Mission for household tap water, the Swachh Bharat Mission for sanitation, and groundwater initiatives such as the Atal Bhujal Yojana. The date in the question is not a distinguishing clue — every one of the seventeen goals is targeted at 2030 — so the whole question turns on knowing which number carries water.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) Goal 7 is 'Affordable and Clean Energy' — ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. It shares the 'for all' and 'sustainable' vocabulary with Goal 6, which is why it is placed next to it here, but its subject is energy, not water.  (c) Goal 8 is 'Decent Work and Economic Growth' — sustained and inclusive economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all. Nothing in it concerns water supply or water management.  (d) Goal 9 is 'Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure' — resilient infrastructure, inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and innovation. Because piped water supply is a form of infrastructure this can feel plausible, but drinking water and sanitation were given a goal of their own precisely so they would not be buried inside a general infrastructure goal.

Concept: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015 and sets out 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 targets, all with 2030 as the horizon. They succeeded the eight Millennium Development Goals, which ran from 2000 to 2015, and differ from them in being universal — they apply to rich and poor countries alike — and in being far broader, adding goals on inequality, cities, consumption, climate, oceans, ecosystems and institutions. Water and sanitation, which had been a single MDG target, were promoted to a goal in their own right as Goal 6. In India, NITI Aayog is the nodal institution for coordinating and monitoring SDG implementation and publishes the SDG India Index, first released in December 2018, which scores every State and Union Territory goal by goal; the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation maintains the National Indicator Framework that supplies the data.

State PCS 2019 Q110 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2019 Q110 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer