Editorial
JS body's directive to save rivers welcome
Concrete action should follow now
WE are happy to note that the parliamentary standing committee on land ministry has directed the ministries of industry and environment to act with urgency to save the country's rivers, particularly the four that serve as the lifeline of the capital. One cannot stress enough the need for immediate measures in this regard since the decay of the rivers, especially around the capital, that sustain us, are occurring faster than we have bothered to react, to stem their demise.
We commend the standing committee on law ministry for its initiative and extend our whole-hearted support to it as it strikes a responsive chord in us. As a newspaper we have been pursuing the matter vigorously for a long time and only recently we brought out in this column the very deleterious consequences that we are likely to face in near future, if the issue is not tackled in right earnest.
Our rivers are suffering primarily on two counts.
They are being subjected to severe pollution, particularly the four that serve the capital, by unchecked effluence from the large numbers of industries that have come up on the banks of the rivers over the last few decades. This has made the river water, which is the prime source of the city's surface water supply, unfit for consumption, and a time may soon come when no amount of purification will render the water usable, let alone potable. This is so with most of the rivers in the country that pass through major conurbations. The prospect bodes very ill for us.
The other cause of demise of our rivers is the unauthoried occupation and filling up of the river banks that are causing the river channels to become constricted with the attendant consequences.
We feel that the time has come for very vigorous intervention by the government that must go beyond mere issuing of directives. While very pertinently, the ministries of industries and environment must be seized with the issue urgently, the other agencies must also be employed to stem the rot. There is a large corpus of laws and regulations that are neither implemented nor followed. Actions must be taken to implement these, and this must be done without delay.
We feel that without specific plans to first, stem the deterioration of the rivers and, secondly, reclaim the rivers from the illegal occupants, all the directives and talks to save our rivers will go in vain. One of our suggestions made recently, of setting up a river protection authority, which should be invested with adequate power and scope to circumvent the bureaucratic impediments and take concrete actions to save the dying rivers, bears repetition.
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