Published in Dwarka Express on 21.5.23

According to a leading newspaper, about 8600 lakes out of 18000 lakes in Karnataka are encroached. It is not a surprising news at all. Everyday, we come across some encroachment happens in the country daily. It has become the part of life. Not only lakes, forest lands, buffer zones of forests are also being encroached in pretext or other. When you come to the roadside, you can pretty well see a hawker occupying platform for his petty shop, a juice stall or a workshop for an automobile repair. Encroachment is not the only culpability of street vendors. Even houses and big shops who officially have registered title deed of their properties tend to infringe into the roads, pavements and water fronts to get extra peace of land. Mushrooming of public land starts in a small scale, invisible or insignificant in the initial stages. One by one, encroachers claim the land their right. Marina Beach was once free from street stalls but now the beauty of the world’s longest beach is filled with filth and dirt. One shopping street has peeped almost to the sea. Encroachment has become the order of the day, and many a time, encroachers resort to under the table dealing with local politicians and bureaucrats. Corruption is rampant, by greasing the palms of local bureaucrats, the hawkers manage to pull along.

Legal Immunity, a blessing!

At the same time forget that the street vendors attain immunity from legal support and it will be near impossible to remove the existing encroachers in the name of street selling. Hawking has become legal, in a way. In 2013, the Supreme Court said the already existing street vendors policy should be treated as a law and passed this order. According to national urban livelihood mission, the court also sought a survey of street vendors and distribute ID cards to the identified ones and create hawking zones for them, which is not being done. In July 2014, the High Court of Karnataka issued notice to the Municipality (BBMP) to remove unauthorized encroachments and obstructions on the footpaths in Bengaluru under section 288-D of Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, 1976. But subsequently, according to Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014, street vending was treated legal. The BBMP is said to conduct a survey and issued ID cards to street vendors. In any case no one could be evicted.

In many of the cities we would have come across once atleast that the municipal bulldozers demolish the unauthorised construction and pulled down several roadside shops. But unfortunately in India we have become accustomed to such upheavals due to local vehement protests and agitations by residents against such encroachments. But nothing concrete has happened to stop such encroachments. In Delhi, unauthorised platform shops all were destroyed and removed by a court order in Dwarka. But very soon everything returned and it was like life as usual. In the process we forget that the platforms are for ensuring safety of pedestrians. But who cares. The same pedestrian walks towards the unauthorized fast food van to take a hot and cheap fish fry and he forgets all rules and regulations when it comes to him. So, encroachment has become a social evil!

Published in Dwarka Express on 14.5.23

Yes! Election fever is here with us also as Karnataka goes for its assembly elections. But our fever is a variant slightly. We administered an environmental poll using Telegram App and the same was responded by 102 persons as at 7 PM on 11.5.23. Several options were given such as a) better garbage management b) planting more trees c) protecting existing trees d) pollution free traffic e) preserving waterbodies f) construction waste control g) stringent encroachment norms h) tab on migratory population i) better roads and infrastructure j) nothing  an work (NOTA).   Interestingly 60% of respondents indicate that the lakes and tanks must be the top concern for the Government, while better garbage management (57%) and planting more trees (44%) are considered for 2nd and 3rd place respectively.  The respondents were asked to choose top 3 concerns, though we are aware that all the above problems are important. The top 3 priorities chosen by Bengalurians Of course, in today’s scenario, any urban area is vulnerable to all concerns enlisted above. Perhaps in other cities, garbage management might have been the top priority, but in Bengaluru, lakes are drawing more attention and it is the need of the hour too.

Historically the lakes are called kere in kannada language. Most of the waterbodies are known to be man-made tanks which were formed during the erstwhile dynasties like Vijayanagara and chola dynasties ensured that there is sufficient water by digging new tanks and deepening the existing tanks. Visionaries like KembeGowda are remembered as the architects of the city as they took a lot of initiatives to save the watr resources. When the 70 Sq km area of Bengaluru has expanded 10 times, slowly 100s of tanks disappeared. Today, an ordinary citizen though do not have time for protecting the lakes, definitely laments about the depletion of these precious waterbodies. It is evident from the response in the survey. Next to waterbodies, a Bengalurian is also concerned with the persistent garbage issue.

Bengaluru had enforced the segregation of waste at source, a decade back. This is being religiously practiced in apartments and gated communities. But the mixed garbage which is spilled in streets is still an eyesore. No little effort by citizens groups is seen to show any positive change in the mindset of the authorities. Citizens are also to blame. However in many unauthorized places, residents conveniently dump wastes and then make a hue and cry that the authorities are in deep slumber.

While planting new trees in massive scale is the 3rd concern of the Bengalurians, saving the existing trees have become a concern has been relegated to 4th place in the survey, and perhaps Bengalurians have now lost hope since the massive tree felling in the name of Metro and road construction is going on unabatedly. Environment cannot be compartmentalized and moreover it has no jurisdiction or borders. If air is polluted it will affect all and if ground water doesn’t get recharged, the human survival will be affected. Waste cannot be eliminated but has to be managed judiciously.

As for as Karnataka elections are concerned, by the time this paper goes for printing, election results would have been announced. Follow on will be a slew of horse trading, if the results indicate a hung assembly. Someone will be lobbying for a ministerial berth while another MLA may be contemplating on some nepotism for his dear and near one. In any case, the burning environmental concerns may hardly draw any attention.

Dr. V Selvarajan

Published in Dwarka Express on 7.5.23

Karnataka state elections are on 10^th May 2023 and political parties are busy with hunting. Hunting of votes and the freebies galore is touching the sky. Castes, anti-incumbency, price rise, unemployment, poverty are the usual political gimmicks used by all parties. While the ruling party uses 6 promises starting with the first letter A, namely Anna (food security), Abaya (social welfare), Akshara (education), Arogya (health), Abhivrudhhi (development), and Aadaaya (income), the main opposition party bats for 5 guarantees namely Gruha Jyothi (family welfare), Gruha Lakshmi (poverty alleviation), Anna Bhagya (food), Yuva Nidhi (youth welfare), and Shakti (women welfare). Well, If Social welfare is important, one has to think of the earth where we live and the environment which enables the living. The manifestos have become just an election ritual.

Our scanner captured one glaring factor. There’s no mention of greener initiatives in any of the manifestos! Alas, it appears that there’s no green ideologies for any of the political parties. One fails to comprehend why this serious concern has been overlooked. Don’t we realize that even the Finance Minister of the Centre has highlighted several aspects of green budget and earmarked crores of rupees for green projects under the budget allocation for 2023-24. Prime Minister was mentioning once that the Circular economy should replace the existing linear economy. The circular economy talks about the recycling of waste and this is seen as one of the significant measures to achieve the climate change targets accepted by India in global Climate conference held in Egypt during November 2023. The political parties failed to stress this dire need to save the environment from a long term perspective.

Green Manifesto is the need of the hour. All political parties should emphasize on the need for protecting the green cover, natural resource management and forest conservation. Green cover is depleting day by day. Waste is not managed properly even in small towns and villages. Landfills are growing equal to a mountain. Air quality is deteriorating day by day. Failure of monsoon, man induced change in climatic condition, annual drought and floods still are looming large. Urban waterbodies are drying out and slowly disappearing. In the name of development, infra projects denude the country. Why can’t a political party promise to plant one crore trees every year. Why can’t a manifesto include clean city initiatives? Why can’t a political party promise to create green job and highly dynamic sustainable development, ensuring long term value creation?