My City My Responsibility - Need Clean, Green Rivers and much more!!!!

 Dear Friends, 

Selfie with fellow concerned citizens!

Being part of the Pune River Revival (PRR) movement has been a challenging journey. Everyday a group of concerned citizens and members of Jeevitnadi, the organisation which is spearheading this movement are striving harder from all the spheres just to ensure that the so-called 'rejuvenation' plan on our RIVERFRONT proposed by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) be SCRAPPED and the ecological ALTERNATIVE suggested by Jeevitnadi team be adopted! 

Mature tree marked to be cut

Every now and then there's a walk on the stretches where the rampant devastating work has been initiated. I visited the stretch at the Bund Garden where I witnessed illegitimate cutting of almost 700-1000 trees in a stretch of less than 500 m. You can imagine how dense is the vegetation along the stretch. Among these 700+ trees there were several trees that were old grown mature heritage trees that housed thousands of birds, mammals, insects and microorganisms (a good biodiversity). There are a number of trees that are planted for transplanting blah blah...while a lot of them are shrubs forming a kind of layered vegetation, a mini version of forest setting that we generally see in a typical forest ecosystem. 

However, this vegetation is being ruthlessly cleared either by cutting or simply dumping construction debris on it in order to ensure fast tracking the DEVELOPMENT process. My fellow citizens Satya and Uma said that they are giving LIVE samadhi to these trees in Marathi it is 'Jivant Samadhi'.

The way this is taking place is simply mindless and illogical, because there's no point in clearing old grown existing trees and dense vegetation just to create newly grown green grass patches along with other manicured vegetation and concrete structures. Definitely there has to be a way out in order to make our riverfront sustainable! 

Trees and shrubs dumped under the debris

The basic LACK of understanding in HOW the riverbed functions, WHAT are its features and WHAT ecosystem services it offers can be clearly seen here. The river water is full of water hyacinth (green that we don't want) and is smelly. Since this stretch is also part of the Boat club there's plan to have boating activity here, however unless we have consistent clean running water in the rivers, boat rides or any activity along the river is worthless. The river is dead, needs restoration!  

Water hyacinth in the river

Apart from this destruction, the scene at the construction labor colony, had been a disheartening scene too. The workers, their families and young ones are residing in tin sheet temporary hutments and facing the scorching heat waves. However these hutments are being sheltered by the full grown trees demarcated to be cleared. What an irony! 

Construction workers colony

Seeing their condition and the destructive site work just gives one an understanding that how careless and ignorant is the overall process of riverfront development! They say project intends to give quality of life to the citizens but it does not reflect in the process! 

If then it is said that WE the environmentalist or activists or whatever names they call us are against development then YES, we are! Because this is 2023 and we are still functioning as if we are in the 1980's when we knew the word 'sustainability' without knowing its meaning. We never valued our people and our environment but now is the time we better adhere to the present norms and align ourselves to the Sustainable Development Goals in order to save ourselves.  

With the rising heat and abrupt changes in day to day weather because of the Climate crisis that we all are in, we cannot afford this careless, mindless, money minting attitude. Lets ensure our economy thrives but so does our environment and our people!!!

As a concerned citizen I want answers to all the so-called development happening in the city as to where are we heading???

We need our basic services in place, listing some of them below.

• Pollution free spaces. 
• Clean rivers.
• Safe public spaces.
• Pothole free roads.
• Appropriate shaded parking spaces. 
• Efficiently managed traffic.
• Safe walking and cycling spaces.
• Less or only required flyovers (and NO flyovers at the expense of our hills).
• Efficient waste management services (segregation first by citizens of course!) with 100% organic waste managed at source (compost/biogas/biochar).
• 100% treatment of wastewater and using this water for construction activities reducing load on local fresh water sources. 
• Efficient, consistent and clean sources of electricity and sustainable water supply. 
• Rainwater harvesting wherever feasible and 100% for residential complexes.
• Conservation of existing aquifers, green spaces, heritage areas and our hills and water bodies. 

More can be added to the list. Please share your opinion on this poll: Click here

Unless we have these in place, we DON'T need any beautified riverfront that compromises our natural ecosystem services and paints artificial green picture having a dark black future!

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

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My City My Responsibility - Environment Clearance NOC or Clearing the Environment!!!

Dear All,

Source: Doughnut economics

Listening to all the VOICE by a group of environmental activists and others on the draft EIA notification, I was compelled to throw some light on the agencies and their capacities who authorize an EIA that is the MOEFCC, CPCB and the SPCB during a few years of my work as an Environment Consultant.  

I am an Environmental scientist and immediately after my masters I got an opportunity to work on Green Building Certifications and Environment Impact Assessments (EIA). I was super excited to know that now I can do my bit and create a positive impact on the Environment. Environment is an interdisciplinary and interwoven field full of complex connections and linkages. Its just like a food web that we see in our ecosystem, full of inter-connections. So I felt like working in a primarily 'non-environment' related field is the best opportunity to create these linkages and bridge the gap. That's why I will forever be grateful to have worked in an architectural firm with a group of architects, engineers, management folks and fellow environmentalists. 

When I got introduced to the concepts of green building certification, it was very tough for me to integrate these concepts in LIVE projects. I literally struggled each day right from working on softwares like AutoCAD along with architects and other consultants to the real estate developers in understanding their view point about development and a lot of core concepts on safety, ecology and overall well-being. Nevertheless I found my balance, and could eventually create some positive impact.

One striking feature about the green building certification is that the systems are set, and are locally adapted to an extent and can be effectively managed over a long period. Since I mostly worked on residential projects, I realized engaging the occupants residing in a green building needs to be enforced in order to make the project successful and sustainable. Green building certification process begins right from the planning stage of the project and hence there's a lot of scope for getting green building principles implemented on the ground. Even if not, there are things that can be retrofitted and they still work with a 50% chance. The other 50% mostly depends on the operation and maintenance of the environmental services post occupancy and that's where a green building concept FAILS! Nevertheless a lot of real estate developers undertake this initiative and its appreciable. However only a few of them do it genuinely out of concern for the sake of environment conservation, kudos to them! We need more such kind of environment conscious real estate developers!!!

Regarding Environment Impact Assessments (EIA), as per the 2006 notification, construction projects that have built up area upto 20,000 sqm and above are required to undergo an EIA. My first hand experience with the real estate developers initially was like 'ok here are the Environment NOC people just give them whatever they need and get this done'. But then during the State Appraisal committee hearings in Mantralaya, Mumbai these developers experienced the seriousness of this NOC, since it can be a criminal offence if they do not adhere to the required compliance. The committee constitutes of experts from varied fields - scientists, architects, engineers, retired IAS officers, ecologists etc. and their comments are quite straight forward, critical and to the point. It was a great learning experience for me. During these hearing though the project complies with all the required papers, a lot depends on the attitude of the developer, his status, ties and relation with the inside people in order to get the clearance. The entire process to finally get an Environment clearance NOC is very much bureaucratic and frustrating, for everyone associated with it and THE Environment. This may have changed now with the whole Ease of doing Business notion but not in favour of Environment!

Both the processes, green building certification and EIA are flawed because they consider the environmental aspects in isolation. These processes fail to create societal connections except some local protests and fail to make associations with other ongoing urban development policies in the light of climate change and sustainability. There is always a debate on Environment vs Development, please click here to read the blog by Dr Priyadarshini Karve that HOW this debate in itself is futile.

After getting the required certification and NOC, the system completely lacks a reality CHECK of the compliance as per the NOC, though it is mandatory by law. It is crucial to see if the project adheres to the norms. On ground, things are very different for most of the projects, with a few exceptions! But a sound coordination between the Ministry, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) along with the local urban body is gravely missing. Its a gamble, nobody says it but everybody knows it - the pollution control board has nothing to do with environment and climate change, they are merely corrupt liaisoning agents. So the point I want to make is, unless the ties between all these agencies are strengthened with sound knowledge about environmental aspects, climate change and above all sustainability with respect to urban development any EIA or green building activity is simply a money minting process. There is a need to design efficient capacity building programs at all these levels in order to build better enviro-legal system and make urban development sustainable!

In case if you have any comments or suggestions you can email them at eia2020-moefcc@gov.in OR check out this LINK for more info on the Draft EIA notification and objections. Last date is 11th August 2020.

Pournima Agarkar. 

www.samuchit.com

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