News Analysis India

Tag: Rivers

  • NGT notice to Uttarakhand over arbitrary classification of rivers

    Express News Service

    DEHRADUN: A principal bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday issued notice to the Uttarakhand government seeking its response within four weeks on how and under what law the classification of perennial and non-perennial rivers in the state has been changed.

    The tribunal has issued notice to the state government seeking clarification on arbitrary classification of rivers or drains into perennial and non-perennial rivers. Advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, appearing for petitioner Sanjay Kumar, argued before a four-judge bench headed by Chairman Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel that the state government has unconstitutionally amended the law of river mining to benefit the mining lobby. The standard of retail dumping from the river bed has been reduced from 500 metres to 25 metres, which will encourage illegal mining.

    The petition also said that the Uttarakhand government has changed rules in favour of stone crushers, screening plants and ready-mix plants among others to unfairly benefit them and thus failed to maintain the hydrological, ecological and biological quality of non-perennial rivers of the state. The said circumstances not only violate the Environment Protection Act, Water Act etc but also cause damage to non-perennial rivers of the state, hence the said rules need to be quashed, the plea said.

    Further, the petitioner has also alleged that the state government has also barred forest officials from collecting transit charges and the said act of preventing forest officials from performing their duty is in violation of the provisions of the Indian Forest Act. 

    DEHRADUN: A principal bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday issued notice to the Uttarakhand government seeking its response within four weeks on how and under what law the classification of perennial and non-perennial rivers in the state has been changed.

    The tribunal has issued notice to the state government seeking clarification on arbitrary classification of rivers or drains into perennial and non-perennial rivers. Advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal, appearing for petitioner Sanjay Kumar, argued before a four-judge bench headed by Chairman Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel that the state government has unconstitutionally amended the law of river mining to benefit the mining lobby. The standard of retail dumping from the river bed has been reduced from 500 metres to 25 metres, which will encourage illegal mining.

    The petition also said that the Uttarakhand government has changed rules in favour of stone crushers, screening plants and ready-mix plants among others to unfairly benefit them and thus failed to maintain the hydrological, ecological and biological quality of non-perennial rivers of the state. The said circumstances not only violate the Environment Protection Act, Water Act etc but also cause damage to non-perennial rivers of the state, hence the said rules need to be quashed, the plea said.

    Further, the petitioner has also alleged that the state government has also barred forest officials from collecting transit charges and the said act of preventing forest officials from performing their duty is in violation of the provisions of the Indian Forest Act.
     

  • Narayanpur is surrounded by dense forests, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, natural caves.

    Chhattisgarh is the district and departmental headquarters in central Narayanpur in the state. It is one of the two new districts created on 11 May 2007. It was built from Bastar district. Narayanpur city is the administrative headquarters of this district. There are 366 villages in this district. The area of ​​Narayanpur district is 20.98 km². The district is surrounded by Bijapur district of Kondagaon, Antargarh, Chhattisgarh. District Narayanpur has a population of 1,40,206, with male and female 70,189 and 58,379 respectively in Census 2011. More than 70% of the total population is tribal people, such as Gond tribe, Maria, Muria, Dhruv, Bhatra, Hala tribe etc. Narayanpur district is divided into two sections, namely Narayanpur, Orcha and two tehsils. The land of tribals and natural resources is also rich in natural beauty and pleasant atmosphere. It is surrounded by dense forest, hilly mountains, rivers, waterfalls, natural caves. Art and culture here are valuable ancient qualities of Bastaria.

  • Swachchh Bharat campaign makes slow progress in UP

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship programme of  ‘Swachchh Bharat’, which was launched on October 2, 2014, is struggling in Uttar Pradesh as against the daily generation of over 15,000 MT of solid waste, only 30 per cent is being processed and recycled while the rest is being despatched to landfill sites, rivers, nullahs, water bodies and agriculture land.

    Same is the state of close to a dozen solid waste management plants set up under Jawaharlal Lal Urban Renewal Mission in big cities of the state during the Bahujan Samaj party regime (May 2007- March, 2012). These solid waste management plants are either defunct or working far below their installed capacity to recycle garbage from cities of the state.

    Swachh Bharat campaign aimed at eradication of open defecation by the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on October 2, 2019, by constructing 90 million toilets in rural India at a projected cost of Rs 1.96 lakh crore.

    Urban Development Minister Suresh Khanna told mediapersons in Lucknow on Tuesday that all solid waste management plants were functional and admitted that the Lucknow plant was working below capacity. He said that the national average of recycling or processing of solid waste was 35 per cent while it was 30 per cent in UP.

    Khanna claimed that the sanitation programme in Uttar Pradesh achieved spectacular success under the Yogi government as out of total 653 Urban Local Bodies (ULB), 630 were declared as Open Defecation Free (ODF). He said that over 7 lakh toilets were constructed after the Yogi government came to power in March 2017, over 1.41 lakh toilets were being constructed and 22,900 community toilets were also built. Khanna added that in 653 ULBs, there were total 12,007 municipal wards and door-to-door collection of garbage was being done in over 7,000 wards. He claimed that each ULB had been provided dustbins to prevent littering of garbage.

    “In the national sanitation survey in 2017, of the 434 cities, as many as 50 cities from UP figured in the worst 100 cities. But in 2018, this number came down to zero and four UP cities were declared as most clean cities of India,” he claimed.

    A study by Centre for Science and Environment, a public interest research and advocacy outfit in New Delhi, said on Monday that if more toilets and septic tanks were built without sewer systems, it would swamp the State.