Guwahati, May 17: Senior journalist and researcher on environment and development issues, Keya Acharya expressed concern over the state of environment across the country and said that Bengaluru can be an example of environmental mismanagement for states in northeast India, which still have comparatively less pollutants.
Keya said this while interacting with journalists in Guwahati Press Club today through video conferencing and said that fifty four percent of India has become water stressed now.
“While cities like Bengaluru are already suffering due to environmental degradation, states in India’s northeast could definitely learn not to follow examples from states like Karnataka,” she said while stressing that rain water harvesting should be made mandatory in all growing cities while initiating new constructions.
“Rain water should be considered as a resource and used as a resource as well. This is more relevant for states in the northeast India which receive more rainfall,” she said adding that the government should also lay more stress on garbage disposal system.
“The garbage disposal system in Bengaluru has affected the water bodies negatively triggering series of environmental problems. The stress should be on segregation of waste so that agencies could pick them up and dispose properly,” she said.
The senior journalist also expressed of concern over the lack of political and public awareness will to address the environmental problems in India and said that she had not come across a single speech during the current elections which is focused on environment. Most political parties had some environmental issues included in their manifestos but there were superficially addressed.
She also expressed concern over the media’s role to highlight environmental issues. She added that the influence of media editors had diminished, which had impacted the quality of news. Keya said that the editorial space in media has been encroached by interests of the owners, which has also led to diminishing of space for people centric issues like environment.
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