Degradation of Environment

Introduction:

It is a common problem faced by people to have access of breathing fresh air. This is more acute in urban areas for multiple factors like high population density, lack of cleanliness, inadequate housing with unhealthy living condition, deficient facilities for disposal of garbage, overstrained infrastructure leading to shortage of water, power, insufficient public transport resulting to influx of large number of private vehicles contributing to not only pollution but also traffic jams wastage of fuel & time.

Indian Scenario:

India is home to 11 out of 20 most polluted cities of the world. Delhi is not only the most polluted city in India but also in the world next only to Bejing. 

Reasons for pollution in a city can be categorized from the following major sources:

•         Vehicular sources
•          Household sources
•          Industrial sources

One of the major issues of dramatic rise of air pollution in most Indian metropolitan areas is direct result of multi-fold increase of all form of automobiles. This is enhanced by lack of seriousness of law enforcing agencies to stress on improve vehicular technology, poor fuel quality, poor vehicular maintenance and almost non-existent traffic planning.

Recently during analysis of high degree of air pollution in Delhi, it is focused that burning of stubbles by farmers of neighbouring states are significantly contributing to rise of PM 2.5 / PM 10 level. As a precautionary measure Supreme Court has imposed a ban on the same the implementation of which is only partial.

World Situation:

The WHO report, highlighting links between energy, air pollution and health, says no country is immune as a staggering 80 % of the cities that monitor pollution levels fail to meet the air quality standards prescribed by World Health Organization. No country in the world has solved the air pollution problem completely.

Clean air is a basic human right that most of the world population lacks, the report concluded. The proven energy policies and technologies can deliver major cuts in air pollution around the world, bring health benefits and provide broader access to energy with improvement of sustainability.

The perfect balance of nature which has maintained life for millions of years is being threatened by technology. The air we breathe, the water we drink and the land that gives us food are all progressively getting polluted. Concern for ecology has become universal.   

Use of ‘Renewable Energy’ like Solar energy, Hydro power, Wind power, etc. should be emphasized instead fossil fuels to improve the environmental scenario.

There is a huge burden of solid wastes from household sources especially in metropolitan areas due to scarcity of vacant land. All the cities are toiling hard to find out suitable places for dumping huge quantity of solid wastes generated daily. 

During rains the percolation of water from wastes deteriorates ground water quality.  Attempts are made towards fruitful utilization of solid wastes to reduce huge mounds of wastes in the dumping grounds, avoid contamination of ground water and eliminate dirty environment attracting flies, insects and animals.

The safe disposal of hazardous E-wastes with recovery of recyclable materials have not yet picked up to the required extent.

Another area that deserves attention is ‘Noise Pollution”. Noises in the proximity of airport may be unavoidable. But the noise generated in industries can be reduced if not totally eliminated by installing suitable noise barriers. However, the vehicular noise generated especially in India by avoidable un-necessary honking arising out of impatience and hurries can be eliminated by little positive thinking on the part of the drivers and strict measures by law enforcing agencies.

In the advanced countries economic developments have caused unprecedented crisis leading to pollution of air, water and land. In the developing countries, the deterioration of environment is due to poverty and inadequate infrastructure.

Conclusion:

The challenges of the future are to eliminate rural poverty, strengthen rural-urban linkage, intensify agricultural production, manage land and water to feed growing population, family planning, industrial ecology, control wasteful land conversion, create employment opportunities, environmental education, etc. 

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Prof. P.K. Mukherjee

Associate Professor

Dept. of Management Studies