India's sustained and rapid economic growth offers an opportunity to life millions out of poverty. But this may come at a steep cost to the nation's environment and natural resources . This insightful book analyzes India's growth from an economic perspective and assesses wether India can grow in a "green" and sustainable manner. Three key issues are addressed.

The first is the physical and monetary costs and losses of environmental health and natural resources driven by economic growth. The authors undertake a monetary valuation and quantification of environmental damage, using techniques that have been developed to better understand and quantity preferences and values of individuals and communities in the context of environmental quality, conservation of natural resources, and environmental health risks.

The second part estimates the value of ecosystem services from the major biomes in India using state-of-the art methods with a view to preserving them for the future.

The third section provides a menu of policy instruments to explore trade-offs between economic growth and envirnmental sustainability using a Computable General Equilibrium approach with particular attention to air pollution.

The conclusions focus on the way forward in terms of policies, measures and instruments as India has to balance the twin challenges of maintaining economic prosperity while managing its environmental resources.

Content - Foreword, Contributors and Acknowledgments, 1 Growth versus Environment Debate, 2 How Much Does It Cost?, 3 How to Value?, 4 What Are the Trade-Offs?, 5 Way Forward: Striving for Green Growth, Appendix 1: Methodology of Environmental Health Losses Valuation, Appendix 2: Methodology for Estimating the Cost of Natural Resource Degradation, Appendix 3: Details of the Meta-Analysis Functions Used in Estimating Value of Ecosystem Services, Appendix 4: Description of the CGE Model, Bibliography, Index