For a little less dust
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: February 07, 2012 -

Post industrialization, the world has made tremendous progress; making our life that much more comfortable in ways which was once unimaginable.

But we also had to pay a heavy price for it, in terms of over exploitation of natural resources, degradation and pollution of the environment.

The whole world or rather every nation - irrespective of big or small, rich or poor is exercised over this these issues.

Since the air we breathe in, and the water that sustains all life forms on this planet do not care much about man made boundaries, understandably the comity of nations has to collectively work towards keeping these precious resources clean and pollution free.

Different international forums, like the Earth Summit or United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED which was held in Rio de janeiro in June 1992, have been trying to find ways and means to tackle degradation and pollution of environment.

The summit produced the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), an international environmental treaty which eventually led to the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 which binds developed countries to limit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there are various research and study groups which keep track of individual country's performance in tackling environmental pollutions and rank them accordingly.

One such group is the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy and Center for International Earth Science Information network , Columbia university, which has been bringing out the Environment Performance Index Rankings every two years since 2006.

In its latest rankings for 2012 which came out recently, India figures right at the bottom of the list at 132 out of the same number of countries under study, earning the dubious distinction of being a country which has the most toxic air in the whole world.

The rest of the lowest five positions are also taken up Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and China all of which belong to the South Asian region.

The same study revealed that in terms of performance in addressing pollution control and natural resource management challenges, India also falls under the weakest performers, figuring at 125 among 132 with Pakistan at 120, Bangladesh and China doing much better at 115 and 116 respectively.

The result of the study clearly points to the systemic failure in the country to address the challenge of pollution control.

Despite enactment of number of laws, establishment of numerous bodies to monitor pollution in the country, there is no hiding from the harsh reality that not enough has been done or achieved to keep our air clean.

One of the biggest polluters in India is the ever increasing number of vehicular population, many of which are aged machines and highly polluting.

Though there is a ban on plying of vehicles which are more than 15 years old, the same is not strictly implemented.

This apart, environment friendly public transport has not developed as rapidly as it should in the country, so as to be able to wean away private vehicles from the roads.

This is also one of the biggest problems of Imphal city which is almost bursting at its seam with the ever burgeoning population of vehicles.

Combined with the dust from the dug out and in the course of construction roads dotting the city landscape, Imphal must be most hazardous place.

Developing a viable environment friendly public transport system, though absolutely essential, might take sometime, completion of road construction work may not be possible overnight but something needs be done about the dust.

How about watering the roads which are not dust prone at least once a day? Will some government agencies take up the this task of keeping the air we breathe in a little safer?