Jalvayu Parivartan

Jalvayu Parivartan-Why is it happening:

Mother nature is crying for HELP now!!…Lack of respect to Mother Nature and motherland ..the rapid increase in the number of landslides are a testimony to the fact that overemphasis is given to creating concrete structures in beautiful, naturally endowed places in the name of tourism development thus hitting the Mother Nature very hard.

• Over emphasis on urbanisation and urban development ; cutting trees, destroying forests in the name of development and growth of mining industry; destruction of tribal villages ;
• Lack of urban planning- Encouraging creation of concrete jungles in the name of real estate development as evidence suggests that there is a super excess of supply over demand of residential flats as many many flats are still lying unoccupied and vacant;
• No restriction on the number of ownership of flats and plots by individuals;
• The rapid climatic change can also be attributed to the environmental pollution.
• Symbolic plantation initiative like ‘ Ek ped maa ke naam’ just can not compensate for the destruction we are doing to the Mother Nature and mother land and thus leading to rapid climate change everywhere in India in general and Odisha in particular.
• The recent outbreak of Covid 19 virus spread the health scare everywhere including the much developed highly urbanised city centres. On the contrary, the loss of lives due to Covid 19 was very minimal in villages. Infact most of the villagers were not wearing masks and still they did not get the virus. This trend can be attributed to greener environment ; better and healthier lifestyle prevailing in villages. The Covid 19 episode infact saw reverse migration from cities to villages. This served as a testimony to the fact that rapid urbanisation and creation of concrete jungles in the name of development has severe adverse consequences and effort should infact be made to drastically reduce the urbanisation efforts and make the village environment more prosperous. Must say, the recent celebration of 20 years of urban development in Gandhi Nagar was soo much contrary to the belief and values of Mahatma Gandhiji🙏
• Medha Patkar, A senior environmentalist and her colleagues were not allowed by the State police to join a discussion forum in Rayagada district in Odisha thus raising concerns about the fundamental constitutional right of Liberty of thought and expresssion???

Jalvayu Parivartan – How?

• Make village as the epicentre of growth by rapidly increasing the budget spend on agriculture and allied activities;
• ⁠Village based enterprises should be included under the areas eligible for PRIORITY SECTOR LENDING..this would in turn help in providing employment opportunities to the local youth of the villages;
• Single-use plastic producing industries should be completely banned as an activity by both the Central and State Government as plastic waste in India attributes to 93 percent of the world wide waste and need for a drastic step to make the air little better to inhale;
• As everyone is aware, June 20 is the international Yoga Day and everyone is encouraged to practice yoga for better well being; But if we provide super polluted air caused due to urban development centres pollution even Yoga can not help in better well-being..it would be infact detrimental to inhale!!!
• The Government should restrict the number of possession of residential flats and plots for individuals in their individual capacity. This would not only curb the greed for corruption and owning heaps of black money but also restrict the mushrooming of residential colonies where many of the flats still remain vacant; The recent evidences of vigilance raids on select state government employees revealed that few of them hold as many as 90 plots and 10 residential flats !!!
• As part of individual effort, we can shift to cloth bags instead of the plastic bags and use of stainless steel water bottles instead of single-use plastic bottles.