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ಕೃಷ್ಣ ಶಾಸ್ತ್ರಿ - Krishna Shastry
ಪ್ರಾಣಿ ಹಕ್ಕುಗಳು, ಶುದ್ಧ ಸಸ್ಯಾಹಾರ, ಪರಿಸರ, ಆರೋಗ್ಯ ಇವೆಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ಒಳಗೊಂಡ ವೀಗನಿಸಂ ಎಂಬ ತತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ನಂಬಿಕೆ ಇಟ್ಟಿರುವ ಒಬ್ಬ ಸರಳ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗ ನಾನು.
ನನ್ನ ಇತರ ಆಸಕ್ತಿಗಳೆಂದರೆ ನೀತಿಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ, ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ನೀತಿಸಂಹಿತೆಗಳು, ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಆರೋಗ್ಯ, ಆವಿಷ್ಕಾರಗಳು, ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ, ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ, ಭಾಷಾನೀತಿಗಳು ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ.

I am a simple Kannadiga following veganism, that cares about animal rights, pure vegetarianism, environment and health.
My other interest include ethics, public healthcare, public policies, innovation, science & technology, Kannada language and linguistic policies.
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Monday, August 13, 2012

Breaking News: SC slaps a whopping Rs.2 lakh crores penalty on urban governing bodies for unethical waste management

 
In a historical judgment, the Supreme Court of India has slapped a huge collective penalty of Rs.2 lakh crores on urban governing bodies. Based on the studies conducted by 2 independent research committees, SC has come to a conclusion that urban governing bodies throughout India have been knowingly and deliberately taking rural regions and people for granted and irresponsibly dumping waste in their lands, thus ignoring rights of such rural people to lead life in a clean, healthy environment. Studies conducted by the independent research committees have reconfirmed the claims of rural people surrounding such places that improper waste management has resulted into extensive pollution of water, air and soil in those regions, and this has been instrumental in spreading numerous diseases, reducing lifespan and even inducing genetic disorders among people in those regions.

According to the judgment, the penalty is to be paid over the period of next five years. This money should be handed over to rural governing bodies and should be used to provide state of the art treatments for affected rural people, cleaning up the mess created so far and also relocation of people where restoration of environment is not possible. Along with this, all urban bodies are given a time period of 3 months to identify sites within their own boundaries for the purposes of waste treatment and disposal, failing which the penalty could further increase.

Further, a special central committee is to be formed to determine exact share of penalty for each corporation, municipality etc. depending on the extent of damage caused by each one of them. Urban governing bodies are instructed to impose higher tax on property owners, residents and businesses in their respective regions to make up deficits in their budgets, if any. At the end of the day, those who produce waste are not owning up the responsibility of end result of their act, the Supreme Court observed, and the judgment is only fair, it said.

SC was also appreciative and sympathetic towards those in urban areas who have been putting special efforts towards better overall waste management. It instructed urban governing bodies to specially recognize any significant efforts by any individuals or institutions, and impose reduced special tax on them. For ex: communities who practice high degree of waste segregation and recycling, institutions who have adopted composting of biodegradable waste within campus.

Finally, the Supreme Court said that the seemingly huge penalty is nothing compared to the loss of affected people and said that the judgment is just one of the first steps to change the future trend.



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Of course the above is a fake news, but I wish to see such news in reality. While waste management is an extremely complex subject and defining accountability and tracking is not an easy task, there is no doubt that majority of the urban population has been lazy, irresponsible and unreasonable in their attitude towards the waste they produce. And today we are seeing many instances where rural folks have woken up and started protesting against urban folks who indiscriminately dump their waste on rural regions. I see villagers’ protest as a welcome development and applaud their efforts to protect their environment and rights.

Please check out following articles published by ‘The Hindu’ on 12th Aug 2012 trying to highlight state of affairs in different parts of India.


Though I live in an urban area and I myself might get affected by such a uproar from rural folks, I honestly hope that such protests from rural folks only becomes stronger in coming days so that urban population and governing bodies are forced to deal with their waste themselves. Then automatically solutions will come up, and most importantly waste generation itself will reduce.

I wish to see a day when following policies and practices are in place:

-          Products that are not environment friendly are strategically priced higher than environment friendly alternatives so that people’s buying choices are automatically guided towards environment friendly products.
-          Governing bodies should definitely provide options for effective and efficient waste disposal for all individual homes and institutions, but only for a heavy charge so that waste generation is seriously discouraged, reuse and scientific waste management at source are encouraged.

Please note that both the above steps will also ensure a surge in R&D and awareness education related to eco friendly products and better overall waste management.

I wish human race collectively works towards lesser waste generation, efficient usage of resources, efficient recycling and disposal.

Note: I will leave this topic here and will share more examples and experience while answering the comments.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

even if SC really slaps such fines, governing bodies wont worry- they can pay off those fines again from our taxes.. they can collect more tax in name or different surcharges etc.. again, rural governing bodies will misuse the penalty money and so on :( -Murali

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