Green blunders in grey zone

Times of India , Thursday, December 13, 2007
Correspondent : Subhro Niyogi & Saikat Ray
It's an inconvenient truth that civic authorities in the city refuse to acknowledge. Kolkata is an urban planner’s nightmare. In his critically acclaimed movie on climate change titled An Inconvenient Truth, former US vice-president and Nobel prize winner Al Gore warned that the city would be at the heart of the crisis when doomsday arrived. "If we don't take steps to assuage the situation, millions will be left homeless in Kolkata and neighbouring areas," was his chilling prediction. Yet, the city's stakeholders seem oblivious to the imminent crisis. Though chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and environment minister Sailen Sarkar make references to climate change from time to time, words rarely translate into action. Take the example of greenery. Though building rules were amended to allow highrises and create open space for trees, most builders flout the norm. For highrises, builders need to give an undertaking that they will plant trees. Of the 450-odd building plans that KMC sanctions each year, 15% are highrises. All of them need to follow the rule and augment greenery. But with only a handful doing so, the net effect is depletion of at least 100 full-grown trees each year. "We don't have enough manpower to check the compliance," says a buildings department engineer. Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, however, said the department would be given powers to cancel sanction plans of erring builders. Months after assuming office in 2005, Bhattacharya had announced pro-green measures including making rainwater harvesting mandatory. Yet, two-and-a-half years later, rainwater harvesting remains a mirage, with KMC not even enforcing the rule for new buildings. "We have the draft rule but it has not been legislated yet," KMC director-general (buildings) Gorachand Mondal conceded. It's no surprise then that apart from a handful of projects like Westwind, Technopolis and Tech Hub, no one has cared to implement it. It is mandatory in building bylaws in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) that had set up rainwater harvesting projects in 40 schools in Bengal pleads helplessness. "The environment department is framing a guideline on projects with 20,000 sq metre-plus built-up space. For smaller projects, KMC or municipalities need to take an initiative," said PCB chief scientist Dipak Chakraborty. “With deep tube wells depleting aquifers and urbanisation preventing recharging, parts of Kolkata are becoming vulnerable to subsidence,” said scientist Debasis Chakraborty. The KMC isn’t too bothered about another key area: renewable energy. Use of solar water heaters has become mandatory in south Indian cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad. But it is yet to be adopted in Kolkata. Green Oscar winner S P Gon Chaudhuri pointed out that if all households were to generate 2 KW of electricity per day from solar panels, it would save 3,800 MW of power a day! “The concept has to be promoted, if not for today, surely for a better tomorrow. The faster we realise and act, the better it is,” he added.
 
SOURCE : Times of India, Thursday, 13 December 2007
 


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