Current thoughts on Environment and Agriculture
I quote hereunder a couple of issues of my
recent thoughts.
1) I firmly believe that
there is urgent necessity to clean up the mighty and Holy Ganga not only to get
rid of its toxic elements accumulated beyond possibly all limits but also to
restore its flow rate, which are complimentary to each other, with the aim to
maintain the ecological balance and improve livelihood of inhabitants of a
large area of the country. I have tried to address in this context the issue of
'drying up of Ganga' being a major concern. I however concentrated my research
efforts in the lower Ganges delta showing colossal damage to areas south of the
Farakka barrage especially Calcutta Port & the Sundarbans as well as almost
the entire stretch of Bangladesh. I published a scientific paper
[ref: H.S.Sen, 2010,
The drying up of River Ganga: an issue of common concern to both India and
Bangladesh, Current Science, Vol 99(6), pp.725-727] on this issue which
explains the situation crisply. The onus is on India, since the mighty river
flows through this country and the major interruptions to flow take place at
innumerable locations within it, to take initiative and find solutions
thereof for the benefit of both countries. How far we are careful to
tackle the situation? Besides, I take the opportunity to also invite kind
attention of the readers to a book [ref: Rashmi
Sanghi (Ed), 2014, Our National River Ganga-Lifeline of Millions, Springer
International Publishing Switzerland, 415p.], published very recently
covering a wide spectrum of issues on mythological, cultural, flow situations
including pollution, transportation, etc. threatening the livelihood of
millions of peoples all along the stretch. .
It has been my experience over 40 plus years of research as a
water management scientist in agriculture is that ecology is an issue grossly
undermined by planners and those who executed in almost every sphere of
activity, although we keep talking about it profusely. I have no doubt in my
mind that the recent horrific experience in Uttarkhand is one such. But the
question remains, are we awakened enough in true sense? This issue is not about
Ganga or Uttarkhand only. These are merely two examples. What I wish to hint at
that the government should review the past cases and for future enforce the
issue of maintaining ecological balance in each of our developmental programme
in letters and spirit without playing adversely with the Nature. The above
issue was referred by me on an occasion earlier also to the Hon'ble President
of India on 24 August 2013, and his office was kind enough to refer it the
Ministry of Environment, GoI. I have no knowledge if this has received any
attention by the latter so far.
2) Turning attention of the readers on agriculture and
allied activities, it has been observed
that there is dwindling growth keeping in view of continued decrease of its
contribution to the country’s overall GDP. The evidence strongly suggests need
for increasing productivity to feed the booming population vis-à-vis the trend
for decreasing per capita agricultural land availability at a rate seemingly
very difficult to attain with the help of improved practices at hand. It is,
therefore, imperative in this context to exploit value-addition of all
agricultural commodities for which a master plan be
developed not only to encourage farmers towards increased profitability with direct access to market in agricultural sector, but also to
solve to a great extent the problem of unemployment in the rural areas. A fairly
detailed analyses in support of the same are available (under consideration for
publication) through research conducted by me and a few of my colleagues
suggesting thereby that agriculture & allied activities have the
potentiality to probably become the greatest commercial hub using small and
medium scale entrepreneurs. A very large section of unskilled and
semi-skilled population in the rural sector may be utilized if properly planned.
H.S.Sen
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