Pollution control: Strategic economic investment

Input-output modelling can clarify the framework: The spending can have multiplier effect on several sectors

- Dr Vani Archana

very winter, as air pollution shrouds Indian cities from Delhi to Kolkata, public debate converges on the costs: the crores spent on air purifiers, water sprinklers and stubble management, the outlay for waste treatment plants and new green technology. Environmental cleanup is framed as a fiscal burden, an expense the government endures under pressure, with marginal credit for averted health impacts.

But this framing systematically undervalues what pollution control delivers. When government and industry invest in environmental remediation, they don't just clean air and water, they trigger cascading economic activity across supply chains, create employment, and drive technological upgrading. The key to revealing these ripple effects lies in input-output (IO) modelling, an analytical framework that tracks how spending in one sector stimulates output, jobs, and incomes across the entire economy.

The input-output lens

Conventional budgeting sees pollution control as a line item, money spent on equipment, infrastructure, or remediation. Input-output (IO) analysis, however, maps the full economic journey of every rupee invested. Leontief’s framework, pioneered in the last century, is made for this moment: how change in one sector powers expansion, job creation and income generation elsewhere.