The Century Times

Today is the first blog action day and I’ll like to direct my thoughts and energy to this single most important issue of protecting our environment.

Much have been said about the importance of preserving our Environment and the Nature, but only a little has been done in this regard. Most of us today will agree to save our environment but will hardly do anything for it. Time today demands action and that too in a big way. Mere thoughts, awareness and sympathetic attitude will not serve the purpose. Many of us honestly want to contribute something towards this cause but don’t know what and how to do it! So I thought to list the efforts of some people which impressed me and may probably kindle some more ideas in you too in this direction.

Through Social Organizations’ cumulative efforts :

A couple of days back I bumped into Mr. S. S. Tadiyal, who is a coordinator for an N.G.O. viz. Rashtriya Jal Evam Vayu Pradushan Nivaran Sansthan based at Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand. At first, I saw his weak and slenderer looking bony body and thought what could this personality had done for our environment. But I realised how wrong I was when he was introduced to me as a key person aggressively working to save the river Ganges. He told me that his Organization is one of the active Organizations to persuade the State Government, the Centre and the UNESCO to declare the first 50 km of stretch of this river as World Heritage. He says “This is the only way to protect it and the Gangotri glaciour from the damage caused by continuous approvals of tiny and middle-sized Hydro-Projects there”. He is against any kind of construction activity upto 500m from its edges. His Organization with Mr. Semwal as its President is actively conducting various programs since 1985 for this single cause of saving the holy Ganga. Some of the pictures speaking the saga of his efforts :

Next year he is planning to open an Information Centre in New Delhi where Kanwariyas will be persuaded to not to proceed above Gangotri and to bring back all there clothes and shoes which they throw there as a religious ritual. To persuade to change a hard core religious person’s religious rituals in favour of our Environment is no easy task. But Mr. Tariyal believes that only our cumulative efforts can provide us with clean environment and hence he is doing his every bit to get them all along.

Through Responsible Entrepreneurship :

Entrepreneurs are more innovative and dynamic in their approach. If they start working with a focus on upliftment and preservation of Environment simultaneously with their desire to make piles of money, I think they can do a lot of favour to this society. A couple of weeks back I met one such entrepreneur at Nainital. Mr. Satvinder Pal Singh Randhawa alias Gulloo of M/S. Randhawa Brothers Enterprises. Mr. Randhawa left his comfortable occupation in U.S.A. to do something for his country’s environment. He came here and saw the pathetic conditions of all the water bodies. He pursuaded the local authorities and the Government to do something for the Naini Lake which is dying out of heavy pollution. With a concrete and practical action plan he was successful in convincing the concerned persons and authorities and secured a decent budget for execution. Armed with it, he brought here one of the best equipments from a renowned American company and started the much needed Aeration Treatment to the lack. The Naini lake of Nainital is suffering from the absence of oxygen at its bottom and of excess of oxygen at its top layer. When he started aeration of the lack on 12th September, he turned around the water of the complete lake 3.6 times a day and is doing it non-stop since then. The result is conspicuous. The lake has become less opaque and its aquatic life has got more space to move around it making the lake more livelier. At the start, the visibility under the water was only 0.67 metre. But when I visited him, it was already 1.20 metre and he claimed that it will get to a level of 3.00 metre by the end of three months of operation. It is told that when the Nainital hill station was founded by P. Barron in 1841, the water of Naini lake was so transparent that one could see a coin falling til its bottom.

Though according to Mr. Randhawa this stage could not be achieved back despite our best efforts, but we should work from today itself to save the lake from going dead. He says its almost dead at present. Its water which is presently dark green cannot be turned back to the legendary blue but we can get back its aquatic life and maintain the balance of the Nature.

He has also founded another company namely M/S. S. C. Health & Environmental (Pvt.) Ltd., at which he is working for arsenic treatments. Thus there are several ways out to cleanse our environment of which our authorities are not even aware of and rather won’t like to allocate any budget to it. But only innovative and dedicated entrepreneurs can work miracles like the one above.

I ain’t a Social Activist, nor an Entrepreneur, then what? :

Well, even then you can contribute a lot. You need to be innovative a bit or atleast wear an positive attitude towards it. Have a look:

This is a newly wed couple from Anuhui Province in China who did every bit to not to spoil their environment because of their wedding ceremony and did away with music and even polluting vehicles!

Today is Blog Action Day, where the blogosphere unites to speak its mind about the Environment.Do what you can but save the environment. Its your own.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Blog Action Day, Nature, Ganga, Nainital Lake, Naini