Anshu Kumari for BeyondHeadlines
Time-to-time environment is awakening us, but we are in the deep slumber of ignorance. When accident occurs then we start blaming on nature act and show sympathy towards victim and curse on act of god and blah-blah.
A few days ago in Pune more than 100 peoples were killed in landslide. According to some experts, “it was man-made disaster caused by deforestation”. It happened after the heavy rain, while the blame falls on crucial, yet deadly monsoon which often triggers landslides and flood.
Geologists and environmentalist said that the tragedy was avoidable. Environmentalist also said that “the government income generated scheme has cut the thousands of trees”. In these areas officially nearly 28,000 trees were cut down, but unofficially figure shows it to be 300,000 trees.
Last year around mid-June, the heavy rainfall havoc across Uttrakhand caused river, glacier and lakes to overflow resulting in massive landslides and flood that killed almost 6,000 people. Expert then said “the construction of hydro-electric dams, deforestation and the spread of unregulated buildings along river banks magnify the impact of the monsoons.”
Despite these situations, people are not awakening. They don’t want to think about environmental impact. That’s why the government body, more and more forest are handed over to corporate entities, in the name of development. Our government is worried about the economy but not about environment and lives of people.
In the last six month of UPA-2 government, many forests areas were allotted to the corporate firms for the mining purpose. Now the present “Modi government” is also planning for construction of 4 new dams, Upper Karnali, Arun-III, Upper Marsyangdi and Tamakoshi-III hydro-electrical project by the PM Narendra Modi during Nepal yatra.
All these points are clearly showing that how much government is conscious about saving people’s lives and the environment. It is very clear that our government is wearing development glass which couldn’t allow them to see the disaster.
According to India disasters report “development works carried out in pursuit of greater economic growth, such as the construction of dams and deforestation are putting people and the environment at greater risk when disasters strike”.
India is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world. Around 76 percent of the portion of Indian coastline is prone to cyclones and tsunamis, while 59 percent of the area is vulnerable to earthquakes, 10 percent to flood and river erosion and 68 percent to drought.
(The writer is a freelance journalist.)
