by Dr Savita Nagpal
Mummy, please help me, I can’t breathe.”
“Daddy, my heart is beating way too fast. Seems like I’m missing beats! Help me!”
These are all too familiar and frequent refrains from frightened children who are gasping for breath and having irregular heartbeats in an environment choked with pollutants ranging from heavy metals like cadmium and mercury to air pollutants like Dioxins and Furans. Neither is the air we breathe, nor is the food we eat or the water we drink, free of these toxins.
In the background of this, there is a proposal of a disastrous new NCR Draft Regional Plan 2041 which suggests removing terms such as “Aravallis”, and “Natural Conservation Zone”. It proposes excluding a Target of 20% Forest Cover. Moreover, it recommends that “Man –made Water Bodies” as well as “Tributaries and Floodplains of Rivers” be removed from the ambit of protection and conservation.
In opposition of these preposterous and damaging proposals, on 13 and 14 Sep, hundred children aged 10 to 15 years, from schools of different cities in India’s National Capital Region, knocked on the doors of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Haryana Bhawan and Rajasthan Bhawan in Delhi, to discuss their deep concerns regarding the environmental dilutions in the NCR Draft plan 2041.
Over the last few weeks, more than 12000 Students and 900 Teachers from Schools in Delhi, Gurugram and Faridabad in Haryana, Noida, Baghpat district in Uttar Pradesh and Alwar in Rajasthan, have signed letters addressed to India’s Prime Minister, Environment Minister, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs and Chief Ministers of the 4 NCR States, requesting them to modify the new NCR 2041 Plan so that it balances Development with Environmental protection.
The children lamented that since the Aravallis are our green lungs and also provide a barrier from sandstorms coming from the Thar Desert, undermining their integrity would mean a worsening of Air pollution and impending desertification of the NCR. Also since the hills have the potential to put 2 million litres of water per hectare in the ground every year and thus act as a critical water recharge zone, compromising the Aravallis would hugely impact the already water starved NCR cities including Delhi, Gurugram, and Faridabad.
The children voiced their concerns very forcefully as evidenced by the underlying quotes.
“We are here today to speak on behalf of the voiceless flora and fauna that call Aravallis their home. The Aravallis are our historical, cultural and ecological heritage which cannot be wiped out of existence by our urban Planners,” said Kushagra Wadhwa, the youngest Crusader from Grade 3 of DPS School in Faridabad.
Mahi a grade 9 student from Pathways school in Gurugram, said, “We discussed our concerns regarding the environmental dilutions in the NCR Draft Plan 2041 with all the government authorities we met today and yesterday. The Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Mr Hardeep Singh Puri told us that he will invite us for a stakeholder discussion to represent the voice of the students. We hope that the Minister lives up to the promise he has made us. If our generation has to survive, ecological conservation has to become a central part of our urban planning.”
Drona Keswani, a Grade 5 student from Shiv Nadar School in Gurugram, added, “Along with the bundle of letters and signed sheets from the students and teachers of the 4 NCR states, we presented native Aravalli saplings to the officials in the hope that they work in the interest of our future and enhance protection to the Aravallis and other natural ecosystems. As young citizens of India battling global warming, climate change, severe air pollution, we would like our government to work on a plan to increase the forest cover target of Delhi – NCR to the national average of 20 percent. The officials said they would convey our concerns to the Rajasthan Chief Minister.”
Hearing it from the mouths of these young children, I strongly feel we should join the campaign to save the Aravallis. To this end we can send an email to https://www.letindiabreathe.in/v2/AravalliBachao. By doing so, we will emphatically reinforce the dire need to repeal the disastrous proposals in the NCR Draft Regional Plan 2041 and to make it ecologically and environmentally compatible with life.
Else, we are on a Death March.
