The Kashmir Monitor
By Bhushan Parimoo
State is reeling under enormous solid waste. Causing serious environ Scenario. It has emerged one of the worst kinds of pollution in the State. Use and toss approach has been allowed to stay. Resulting in a usual sight of littering all around. Not a pleasant scenario and hygiene one. Very nauseating and revolting but forced to bear. Valley once was known as Paradise. Jammu Division one of the cleanest in the Subcontinent. These days whole environment has become most unliveable. State continues to climb unsteadily without any respite on the ladder of the worst polluted States. Name any place anywhere sure l find it full of garbage in the State one. Vales, Dales, Mountains, Pastures, Pilgrim Places .Rivers, streams carry waste, Lakes Wetlands, are choked with Garbage. Even drains, lanes, foot paths, restingplaces stinking over the years. Situation has come where authorities find hardly any place left where Garbage could be dumped. When present is so not hard to imagine what lies in future here.
A conservative estimate has been arrived at thatabout 1 Kg of solid waste per day is tossed with impunity per person. Pushing State towards one of the Worst kind Ecological Disaster. Every law abiding citizen is of the view that the care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. But found lacking miserably haplessly here. Thereby authorities jeopardise blatantly the Constitution provisions guaranteeing everyone’s right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Because of lack of accountability transparencies, doctrine of Comrade in arms prevailing in the bureaucracy to come to rescue of each other. Has been the primary cause. Nobody has ever has been taken to task for dereliction, criminal negligence .Which has caused irreparable damage on the livings and environ.
Agencies can afford under the system to give Nelsons eye to pollution. Hired and borne on the Public exchequers to take note of it and initiate remedial measures? It has been age old practice for the Governments. To establish independent Departments to carry and have implemented programme and policies of the Government. To conduct its day to day business smoothly and effetely as mandated .State established the J&K State Pollution Control Board in 1987 for public good. To contain Pollution and contain it to zero tolerance. There are plenty of Laws and Agencies to deliver. In its own admission State Board admits that responsibilities were assigned to the Board for enactment of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (EPA). The EPA had a large domain of regulatory and developmental function in the area of Environment Management which is an umbrella Act and various Rules made under this Act from time to time covering the various facets of Pollution. Rules under Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and EP Rules, besides 1974 Water Act and 1981 Air Act.
Various responsibilities have been assigned to the JKSPCB under the EP Act. But the question arises which this writer often faces while interacting with the cross section of the Society. With such an excursing powers without interference by other agencies what fails then the JKSPC Board not to deliver? Commoners too often put many queries and manifested ones where this writer fumbles to satisfy their quest. Do JKSCP Board has been packed with incompetent person, or has it reposed it’s the mandate on consideration. Public should not allow it to play truants with environment around. Enough is enough time has come to explore every option available and them utilised .Without fear or favour to make them deliver. Board has to reorient its deliverance system as per need. Board has multipronged standard procedure of Operations to live up to its mandate. Foremost one penetrates deep in problematic areas to have first-handknowledge at site in person. Every officer should make it a mandatory to conduct inspections in the most venerable areas around daily .Expand area of inspection activities like ripples on weekly, fortnightly and monthly basis .Appraisal has to be viewed as per need. The jurisdiction of operation of the Board covers entire State on this side of the line. Which calls for to exert itself in the entire State .Instead confine to office premises. Just to push files. Methodology to verify what reported or what is not reported is not there.
Since inception as per record available subject to correction hardly any officer at the helm of affairs has conducted tours in the state. Strangely even what it conveys through its publications has not been got realised in action. A few of itsslogans are Solid Waste Management at Source by all citizens. Nothing is Waste until it is mixed/Wasted. Segregated item can be converted to Wealth. But these tips has not reached to masses on trial basis. Here lies its Achilles heel. The Solid Wastes generated is bio-degradable and non-biodegradable ones. The term biodegradable simply means that an item will break down into smaller parts after disposal. However, being biodegradable does not mean that it is also compostable. The largest reason for this is that while a biodegradable item may break down into smaller bits, these components may not be able to provide any nutrients when used as compost. Non –bio gradable waste can further classified as Recyclable, Toxic Waste and Soiled one.
More than half of tossed trash is an organic matter which is biodegrades organic waste, such as food and kitchen waste, manure, leaves, grass trimmings, paper, wood, feathers, crop residue, paper towels and napkins, tea bags and coffee grounds, 100% paper plates, and compostable serving ware are etc. These can be composted at ease and becomes rich in nutrients. Beneficial for the land in many ways, including as a soil conditioner, a fertilizer, addition of vital humus or hemic acids, and as a natural pesticide for soil, used, in gardens, landscaping, horticulture, urban agriculture and organic farming. Composite means breaking down organic material. The composting process requires organic material, air, moisture and soil. It isa natural biological process carried out under controlled aerobic conditions (requires oxygen). There are three kinds aerobic, anaerobic, and vermicomposting. is useful for making .Aerobic composting means composting with air in the presence of oxygen beneficial for daily Dump process. Anaerobic composting is carried without air in a seal space. And Vermicomposting iscarried with the help of earthworms suitable for dairy farmers who combine animal waste with the Agriculture waste on individual or community basis to produce rich composite. Discarded containers such a Syntax Tanks, used big or small drums, Buckets or ever a covering sheet come handy; To start with as Gandhi on self before preaching. Backyard composting is an effective way to reduce household carbon footprints. State Pollution Control Board has to start its endeavour for Green and Clean Environ from here. Emphasising on Mohhala/Lane of a Ward in urban, Moda in rural each household as a basic subunit for demonstration, which can be generated as a mass movement with public participation? Composting is a very old practice to convert biodegradable in to a manure.
The ancient Akkadian Empire in the Mesopotamian Valley referred to the use of manure in agriculture on clay tablets 1,000 years before Moses was born. There is evidence that Romans, Greeks and the Tribes of Israel knew about compost. The Bible and Talmud both contain numerous references to the use of rotted manure straw, and organic references to compost are contained in tenth and twelfth century Arab writings, in medieval Church texts, and in Renaissance literature. Notable writers such as William Shakespeare, Sir Francis Bacon, and Sir Walter Raleigh all mentioned the use of compost. Indian subcontinent can boast to be the first which carried experiment on scientific lines about improving the techniques about Composting. Sir Albert Howard, a British agronomist, spent almost 30 years from 1905 onwards experimenting with organic gardening and farming. He found that the best compost consisted of three times as much plant matter as manure, with materials initially layered in sandwich fashion, and then turned during decomposition (known as the Indore method). Though he journeyed to India to teach Western agricultural techniques he found that the Indians could in fact teach him more. One important aspect he took notice of was the connection between healthy soil and the villages’ healthy populations, livestock and crop.
Patrick Holden, Director of the UK Soil Association Soil quoted Howard as saying “the health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible.” He was president of the 13th session of the Indian Soil Congress in 1926.He earned recognition as the modern day father of organic farming and gardening. After all is said and done. Which is more said than done JKSPC Board should not constructed the patience of the commoners as haplessness. To a degree out of respects it is always there .As general law abiding citizen of the underprivileged class adhere to it out of civilised manners. But there is a limit and when it dawns on them who are robbing their present future and that of generation after generation, not hard to visualise what shall emerge not at a pleasant situation. To avoid it Board should make efforts to come out of the shell to which it has drawn itself. Even snail’s pace is better than the Board. Commoner expect that the authorities take up the assignment given under Law to contain pollution .Like as Lotus invasion .as lotus invasion. Public wants results not sermons or the Publications.
(The Writer is a Jammu based Environmentalist)
