Make It Clean Ideas Campaign

Make It Clean Ideas Campaign

Source: http://economydecoded.com/2014/10/swachh-bharat-mission-stride-towards-clean-india.html 

Very rightly said proverb, ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’. Keeping this principle in mind, Gandhi spread the awareness for cleanliness among the countrymen in the times when country was under foreign rule. Sant Gadge Baba, a saintly social reformer, a wandering mendicant who held weekly festivals with the help of his disciples across Maharashtra.

Sant Gadge Baba cleaning at Goregaon, Mumbai
(Source: http://socialreformers.sgbaulib.com/index.php?view=detail&id=42&option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=64)

His reforms and visions for villages in India is still a source of inspiration for various political parties and non-government organizations. Enthusiastically Hon. PM. Modi declared for the Red Fort during Independence Day Celebration about the launching of Swach Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission). However the political parties may politicize the campaign, my kudos to him for all valid reasons.  

The first and foremost thing about littering is lack of zeal among the fellow countrymen to keep the surrounding clean and dispose the waste in a responsible manner. However strict laws you make, if everyone decides to break it, no government in the world can save it. Same is the case with the littering in public places and on the roads. We have a very well framed clause about the littering in the public places, we all violate it. No one can really help the Government in implementation of the law. So how do we deal with that? Is it enough to add some pages in the textbook talking about the cleanliness? How good will it work? Who will teach these highly educated morons who throws out the wrapings while driving out of a McDs and Pizza Huts? So only uneducated people cannot be blamed for this settings.

But actually the real problem lies somewhere else, in the minds, in the hearts which allows us very easily to openly urinate and litter. We are trained in that manner to think, it no crime to do so. So what a supreme leader of a country can do in state of affairs? Take a broom and start cleaning, same as the saints overs the years have done.  Mr. Modi is a celebrated leader. He enjoys full popularity among the masses more that his party does. Thus Modi taking a broom in hands and cleaning street is a big act. People are bound to follow him. Also he invited many others celebrities and luminaries for doing same. This created an air for the movement and suddenly everyone started talking about cleanliness. If this movement continues in same enthusiasm, it will not take much longer for everyone to be aware of cleanliness and it will be woven in the fabric of social morality. Then people will demand more meaningful laws related to cleanliness and they will love to follow it. 

As per the Constitution of India, Cleanliness and Sanitation is a state subject. Maximum the Centre can do is prepare directives to the states regarding making new laws and amendment of the existing laws or amend Directive Principles of State Policies (Part IV of Constitution of India). The states should act proactively, ensure participation of people working in the field, different NGOs and other elements, play a role of an initiator, guide, mentor and mediator to bring different business, non-business models in the play and start a serious business of cleanliness. The Government can best do is that crowd source ideas for the people itself, provide a platform, involve people and work with them to create a beautiful India.   

Its our turn: For development

Its our turn: For development

The month of September is the month of Modiplomacy, sounding pretty successful in bringing the foreign investments into India and making the Indian Economy rejuvenate with his markup program Make in India. With Japan, China and US set to make a lead into this, Modi has also promised foreign, Indian entrepreneurs and NRI’s to facilitate and boots the business friendly environment in India. The current scenario shows that India’s GPD to increase by 5.6% in current financial year and by 6.5% in next financial year as per some independent survey agencies. Also already Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC, an American financial services company has revised India's rating from "Negative" to "Stable". If Modinomics plays well, the India’s GDP is about to increase many folds in near decades. This is ought to create jobs and increase standard of living, life expectancy and other vital parameters if we see a holistic picture of the Modi Government’s policies including Skill development, Jan-Dhan Yojna and Swaccha Bharat Abhiyan.

Many has raised concerns over industrialisation of Indian economy on the issue of Global warming. The more of the discussion is about that the industries look towards the developing countries as a dump yard of emissions. Kyoto Protocol, does not have any sanctions on emission for the Non-Annexure I countries, which includes India. The most of the develop world which boast on its economy have developed their economies by exploiting their colonies, emitting very high amount of carbon in their industrialisation period and left no space for others to develop. They not only exploited the natural and economic resources of their colonies, but also left these nations fight with many social problems such as illiteracy, poverty and high population growth.

Many has raised concerns over industrialisation of Indian economy on the issue of Global warming. The more of the discussion is about that the industries look towards the developing countries as a dump yard of emissions. Kyoto Protocol, does not have any sanctions on emission for the Non-Annexure I countries, which includes India. The most of the develop world which boast on its economy have developed their economies by exploiting their colonies, emitting very high amount of carbon in their industrialisation period and left no space for others to develop. They not only exploited the natural and economic resources of their colonies, but also left these nations fight with many social problems such as illiteracy, poverty and high population growth.

Today as country, India is third highest emitter of carbon in the air behind US and China. Even EU is ahead of India. 

Total carbon emission shown by size of balloon

For India to become a developed nation, to reach the development to the grass root level, considering current reforms by the new government and its response by the industrial sector, it would take atleast another 3-4 decades. Adding new dimension of global to the set of existing rules for the global warming will make the development a distant dream to the third world. Also we should not forget the per capita emission of the developing countries is very less as compared to the developed countries who are reaping the fruits of development.

Per capita carbon emission by size of balloon 

They carbon emission should be certainly based on the number of people of the country, because in the modern day principle of equality, every individual has an equal right to lead a happy and comfortable life. If discrimination is made on the basis of the country he lives, he will be denied of many of the important rights required for his personal liberty. Just for instance, if we consider that India undertakes a massive mission to decrease its dependency on fossil fuels and exploits all its renewable resources of energy in next five decades. We have to also consider that the energy need of India will increase but improvement in the technology will increase the efficiency which will offset the energy demand. This kind of study suggest that after 50 years, we will achieve only 37% of our energy coming from renewable sector and we will still depend on fossil fuel for the energy on large basis. But the worst is, the energy cost will increase five-fold. This is a very massive implication that we cannot blindly go for all greener technologies.

Also the technologies regarded green yesterday may not be proved that green today. The photo-voltaic solar panels, we studied as a green technology in our schools are produces recalcitrant sludge during its manufacturing phase. So if we perform Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on thermal power plant and PV power unit, thermal power units turns out to be cleaner and greener.

Global warming skeptics

We all know, global warming is happening. But is it happening due to emission due to burning of fossil fuels? Greenhouse gases constitute a very small fraction of our atmosphere. The water vapour is the major gas causing Greenhouse effect. A small fraction of theses GHGs is carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide is a natural gases. This is emitted by almost all terrestrial animals during their life supporting process of respiration. Also the volcanos all over the world emit a large amount of carbon dioxide than we all together. Also there are many others facts which proves that global warming is not due to anthropogenic emission of carbon.

India’s role

So the question is, what should be India’s role in the current scenario regarding global warming. What I feel is that, today the science does not completely prove that is really global warming really anthropogenic or not. So maybe we might invest huge money and time by avoiding all that activities leading to emission of GHGs and then looking after our development and if after few decades, it is proved that global warming has nothing to do with anthropogenic carbon emission, we are at great loss!!!

So India should continue its march towards industrial and economic development keeping in view the holistic picture of our country. If at all the developed world cares for global warming, it should leave some space empty to emit carbon for the developing world and bring the whole world on same table f development. 

Our environmental policies: Explained

Our environmental policies: Explained

A scenic view from Kashmir Valley

India is a developing country and facing all such problems common to a developing country including that of environment. As a large section of India's population devoid of basic amenities, environmental issues remains largely unanswered. Though there is a long way ahead to achieve in this area, we can structure our policies and laws in such a way that will increase our pace towards our goal. 

Environment is a broad area made up of different biotic and abiotic factors. The question that what in the environment should be protected most should be essentially answered based on cause effect analysis. This will be based on many factors such as whether people directly use that particular source of water directly for drinking purpose, what is the fate of the of the pollutant if released, how does it affect  the surrounding ecosystem etc. All these questions converges to a simple question that what amount of population is affected, by what severity and due to what amount of pollutant. This analysis can be simply carried out by converting all the damages either to humans or to the other living beings into monetary values and then comparing that if protected what will have least loss. So a prioritisation can be made on the choices of the pollution reduction alternatives. For e.g., If an industry has a load of pollutant released in the liquid stream as well as that of gaseous pollutants. If the industry is located far upstream of the human settlement, them the water pollutant mainly released as BOD may not cause much harm as that of the air pollutant if worked out as said above and hence air pollution abatement given the first priority.

The above was the discussion related to the policy framing for the pollution abatement. Also a strong administrative structure is needed for policy implementation. In India, Public health and sanitation comes under state list of powers. The most of important tasks of public sanitation such as construction, maintenance and operation of solid waste disposal systems, wastewater and drinking water systems and others are done by urban local bodies in urban areas. Most of the times we see that the Urban as well as rural local bodies incapable of managing the solid waste resulting it lying on streets.

Also the garbage lying outside the boundary of Municipalities and Grampanchayats on the highways, agricultural fields, railway etc., remains unattended.

The local governmental bodies lack expertise and many times incapable of handling such kinds of large projects of constructing the facilities for this purposes. So here I advocate that the construction, maintenance task should be undertaken by the Public works department under a separate wing of expertise in this subject.  This is more advantageous form of policy implementation program as they task force have more experience and expertise in the same work and also they have more confidence to use newer and more efficient technologies whereas the agency doing it for the first time will go on the safer side and only try the old trusted technology though it may not be very efficient.

Water treatment plant at Malkapur(Karad Dist- Satara, Maharastra)

Although Maharashtra Jeevan Pradhrikaran in Maharashtra is state level departmental organisation working in the field of water supply and sanitation for planning, designing and operation-maintenance, all other tasks of public health and sanitation remains in the hands of local bodies and which are inadequately answered. Also Municipal Solid Waste handling rules, 2000 makes it for the municipalities to look after the collection, segregation and scientific disposal of the solid waste, some studies  says around 50% of our solid waste remains uncollected. This lies on the roadsides, open lands, railway tracks etc. If this responsibility is given to a state body as said earlier, they may plan and implement larger and smarter collection, segregation and disposal techniques which are not only environment friendly but also cost effective as they can be built for two or more adjoining towns or villages and also attract employment and eco-tourism.

Same is in the case for water and air pollution management, that policies work more effectively if we implement them at state level rather than at local level.