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The price of development….

For 62 years we have lawfully followed our tradition of peace, setting brilliant examples for the world to follow.

Smita Mishra We have come a long way since independence. For 62 years we have lawfully followed our tradition of peace, setting brilliant examples for the world to follow and for 62 years we have engraved our name with achievements in all the props of development. But the price paid in return has been heavy. In 1947 our population was 350 million and now it is 1.02 billion. In 1947 we had clean sparkling rivers infusing life into the vast fields…and today we have dried or drying up streams and watercourses filled with filth and toxic waste from the industries. At the time of independence we had dense forests replete with flora and fauna and today we have red data books where the entries increase with the passing of each day. Our national bird is killed for meat and feathers and our national animal is running for its life. The environmental crisis talked about by wealthy nations is no longer a danger still in the womb of time. It is right here knocking at our doors. Hotter summers, erratic monsoon patterns, droughts, floods and newer types of diseases are enough to suggest what we are heading for. But sadly our Government does not seem to have woken up to the crisis yet. For the effect of climate change on “agriculture, water resources, health and sanitation, forests, coastal-zone infrastructure and extreme events” which are “specific areas of concern” our budget has just 2.6% to give! While data reveals venomous truths, the government lives in the stupor of conventional thought that human ingenuity will triumph in the future as it has in the past. Science and technology will come to man’s help and rescue him from ecological disaster. Otherwise what would explain why we are not seriously heeding the warnings that declare India to be the home of world’s two most polluted cities, that one person dies every hour in the capital due to environment related complications and that our country contributes in a major way in the list of world’s “Dirty Thirty”. Our dependence on coal as a major energy source has led to a nine-fold jump in carbon emissions over the past forty years. In fact the Asian Brown Haze is believed to be the result of this. The cost of environmental degradation has been running at nearly 4.5% of GDP. In India air pollution causes 1 lakh deaths and 25 million illnesses every year and though we have no dearth of laws to check pollution, we have a serious problem of their implementation at local level.Bangalore holds the title of being the asthma capital of the country. Mumbai authorities had to purchase 42K litres of perfume to spray on the city’s enormous waste dumps at Deonar and Mulund landfill sites when the stink became intolerable! Little has been done to heal the ailing river, whose very source, the legendary glaciers at Gangotri are shrinking alarmingly. More than 25 years have elapsed since the Ganga Action Plan was first commenced and 900 crores of taxpayers’ precious pennies have been wasted. But dirt, filth and garbage in the waters of the holy Ganges have increased over the years and the river is dying a slow death. No, we are either too proud or too indifferent to take lessons from Britain which revived dead Thames and now families of trout happily play in its sparking waters. But instead we magnanimously declared Ganga the National River as if this ‘elevated status’ would solve all problems. Let’s not talk about Yamuna which is mostly a dead river now. Experts believe that India needs $2.5 billion worth of environmental technology. Our Government has achieved in some fronts, like the forest cover has increased after a period of rapid decline and initiatives to promote solar, wind and tidal energy have been successfully adopted in several states. In fact the forest department’s plan of curing the ‘stains’ of Taj Mahal by planting Tulsi all around has been widely appreciated. Nuke energy can become a clean source provided we master the art of disposing the radio active waste generated in the process. Environment tax, on the lines suggested by Al Gore would be a good idea. Besides, more investment in green technologies is the basic mantra that can bail the country out of this impending crisis. India’s refusal to cut down emissions in the recently held G-8 summit may be diplomatically correct, but sadly it may not have a fair impact on our very own environment in the future. Let’s not forget that the Mahatma was great not because he wrestled independence for India from the British but because of his framework of an alternative world-view and the methodology of achieving it. Lets always remember his often cited quotation that ‘Earth has enough to meet everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed’ and be kind to an environment which is our own.