Revision summary
ABC Ltd.’s plant promises jobs, efficiency and a tax holiday in a poor, quiet region. Residents fear inflation, in-migration and social disorder; CSR talk without a budget has failed. Issues include consent, distributive justice, environment and State–firm alignment. Forcing the plant or abandoning all investment both fail the dual goal. The ethical path is assessed design, local jobs and housing, shared infrastructure, audited benefit funds, and joint monitoring — not smearing protest.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
A large company wants a cheaper, greener plant in a quiet, poor region that the government also wants to develop. Residents fear that “development” will arrive as inflation, strangers and a broken social order. The ethical task is to keep investment from becoming a raid.
Body
Stakeholders
- Residents of Vikaspuri, including those who want jobs and those who want the present quiet.
- ABC Ltd., its workers, managers and the wide shareholder base.
- Incoming workers and contractors (“aliens” in the stem’s language), who are persons, not a pest.
- The government that offered a five-year tax holiday and seeks regional development.
- Local environment, water and common land, which do not speak in court unless someone speaks for them.
- The judiciary, once a plea is filed, and future generations in the region.
(a) Issues involved
- Development versus disruption: employment and cheaper, cleaner production versus cost of living, congestion and cultural strain.
- Consent and voice: CSR lectures after the site is chosen are not the same as free, prior, informed consultation.
- Distributive justice: profits and tax holidays may leave the region while noise, inflation and social tension stay.
- Environmental and social externalities: even an energy-efficient plant uses land, water and roads.
- Credibility of CSR: if CSR is only a brochure against protest, it is persuasion without a budget, which residents rightly distrust.
- Rule of law: protest is legitimate; so is a company’s lawful investment. Forum-shopping or State capture would be a separate wrong.
- Government conflict of interest: a tax holiday can look like the State taking the firm’s side before harms are priced.
- Values in clash: efficiency, growth, equity, sustainability, dignity of the existing community, and non-discrimination toward migrants.
(b) Options
- Option 1: Push the plant through with police and CSR films.
- Merit: speed and shareholder comfort.
- Demerit: lasting hostility, court stays, and ethics reduced to force.
- Option 2: Abandon the site.
- Merit: peace in Vikaspuri.
- Demerit: lost jobs, lost cleaner technology, and a signal that every poor region must stay underdeveloped.
- Option 3: Redesign the project with residents as parties, not as an audience.
Values and action (recommended)
- Integrity: publish the true footprint — water, housing, wages, emissions — not only the 20 per cent cost saving.
- Fairness: a written benefit-sharing plan, not a speech.
- Compassion and non-maleficence: prevent a rent shock for the poorest tenants.
- Sustainability: energy efficiency is a start; add water, waste and green-belt duties.
- Action 1: Pause full construction until a social impact assessment and, where law requires, environmental clearance are complete and explained in the local language.
- Action 2: Local hiring targets, skill centres, and a housing plan so that in-migration does not simply inflate rents; include incoming workers in services rather than ghettoising them.
- Action 3: Infrastructure first or in parallel: water, health, school and roads funded by company plus government, so the tax holiday is not a one-way gift.
- Action 4: A legally backed local development fund from a share of savings, with panchayat and independent audit, so CSR is a budget line.
- Action 5: Grievance cell, joint monitoring committee, and a public hearing that can still change plant design (shift, buffer, traffic).
- Action 6: Do not buy silence. Do not smear litigants. Meet the court with facts.
- Action 7: Government should condition the tax holiday on employment, pollution, and housing milestones, not on a ribbon cutting.
What would not satisfy both
- A plant that saves 20 per cent and leaves Vikaspuri as a labour camp.
- A veto that treats every outsider worker as chaos rather than as a rights-bearing person.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PLANT[New plant at Vikaspuri] --> CLASH[Jobs versus disruption] CLASH --> SIA[Social and environmental assessment] SIA --> SHARE[Jobs housing water fund] SHARE --> MON[Joint monitoring] CSR[Brochure CSR] --> FAIL[Protest and court]
Conclusion
The issues are consent, distribution of costs and benefits, environmental load, and CSR as public relations. The company can still build if residents gain jobs, services and a real voice, and if migrants are housed rather than blamed. Growth without that bargain is not ethical development.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Case study. Saraswati was a successful IT professional in USA. Moved by patriotic sense of doing something for the country she returned to India. Together with some other like-minded friends, she formed an NGO to build a school for a poor rural community. The objective of the school was to provide the best quality modern education at a nominal cost. She soon discovered that she has to seek permission from a number of Government agencies. The rules and procedures were quite confusing and cumbersome. What frustrated her most were delays, callous attitude of officials and constant demand for bribes. Her experience and the experience of many others like her have deterred people from taking up social service projects. A measure of Government control over voluntary social work is necessary. But it should not be exercised in a coercive a corrupt manner. What measures can you suggest to ensure that due control is exercised but well meaning, honest NGO efforts are not thwarted?
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q10). View answer →
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Are protesters anti-development by definition?
No. They are pricing harms the brochure omitted. Some opposition can be selfish; the answer is a transparent bargain, not a label.
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Does energy-efficient technology cancel social duty?
It reduces one harm. Rent, water, housing and consent remain. Efficiency is not a moral full stop.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2019 · Q7 · GS IV · 20 marks
Case study. An apparel manufacturing company having a large number of women employees was losing sales due to various factors. The company hired a reputed marketing executive, who increased the volume of sales within a short span of time. However, some unconfirmed reports came up regarding his indulgence in sexual harassment at the workplace. After some time a woman employee launched a formal complaint to the management against the marketing executive about sexually harassing her. Faced with the companies' indifference, in not taking cognizance of her grievances, she lodged an FIR with the police. Realizing the sensitivity and gravity of the situation, the company called the woman employee to negotiate. In that, she was offered a hefty sum of money to withdraw the complaint and the FIR and also give in writing that the marketing executive is not involved in the case. Identify the ethical issues involved in this case. What options are available to the woman employee? -
2020 · Q11 · GS IV · 20 marks
Case study. Parmal is a small but underdeveloped district. It has rocky terrain that is not suitable for agriculture, though some subsistence agriculture is being done on small plots of land. The area receives adequate rainfall and has an irrigation canal flowing through it. Amria, its administrative centre, is a medium sized town. It houses a large district hospital, an Industrial Training Institute and some privately owned skill training centres. It has all the facilities of a district headquarters. A trunk railway line passes approximately 50 kilometres from Amria. Its poor connectivity is a major reason for the absence of any major industry therein. The state government offers a 10 years tax holiday as an incentive to new industry. In 2010 Anil, an industrialist, decided to take benefits to set up Amria Plastic Works (APW) in Noora village, about 20 km from Amria. While the factory was being built, Anil hired the required key labour and got them trained at the skill training centres at Amria. This act of his made the key personnel very loyal to APW. APW started production in 2011 with the labour drawn fully from Noora village. The villagers were very happy to get employment near their homes and were motivated by the key personnel to meet the production targets with high quality. APW started making large profits, a sizeable portion of which was used to improve the quality of life in Noora. By 2016, Noora could boast of a greener village and a renovated village temple. Anil liaised with the local MLA to increase the frequency of the bus services to Amria. The government also opened a primary health care centre and primary school at Noora in buildings constructed by APW. APW used its CSR funds to set up women's self-help groups, subsidize primary education to the village children and procure an ambulance for use by its employees and the needy. In 2019, there was a minor fire in APW. It was quickly extinguished as fire safety protocols were in place in the factory. Investigations revealed that the factory had been using electricity in excess of its authorized capacity. This was soon rectified. The next year, due to a nationwide lockdown, the requirement of production fell for four months. Anil decided that all employees would be paid regularly. He employed them to plant trees and improve the village habitat. APW had developed a reputation of high-quality production and a motivated workforce. Critically analyse the story of APW and state the ethical issues involved. Do you consider APW as a role model for development of backward areas? Give reasons.
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