Maharashtra comes up with Vision-2020 draft for environment protection

Environment Status Report of every district till 2020

* Maharashtra Environment Department issues draft of Vision-2020, and invites suggestions/objections of people till August 15

Staff Reporter

If everything goes well, every district in Maharashtra will have its Environment Status Report (ESR) prepared by the year 2020. Again, if everything goes well, these ESRs will provide the basis for chalking out time-bound action plan considering climate change. Finding it difficult to believe? But, these are the things, apart from many others, envisioned in the State Environment Department’s draft Vision-2020 document.

The document has been prepared recently by the department to define the course of action after integrating various components including different laws and schemes, towards a sustainable environmental status for the State. The document focuses on 20 major areas in which action is proposed to be taken by the year 2020. The department has placed the draft document on its website as well as that of Maharashtra Government, and has invited suggestions/objections from the people till August 15. After receiving suggestions/objections, necessary amendments would be made to the draft and the final Vision-2020 document will be adopted by the Government.

The draft document proposes that ESR for every district should be prepared by the year 2020. The ESR is expected to include various aspects like quality of air, quality of water, ground water level, power consumption and land usage, solid waste generated and managed, biodiversity etc in every district. The district-level time-bound environmental action plan to be prepared on the basis of ESR will focus on aspects related to climate change also.

Other major aspects include lake conservation, river action plan, creating environmental literacy among masses, making youths more aware about environment and related issues, creation of green villages/cities/areas/complexes, taking measures to implement green infrastructure creation plans etc. The lake conservation aspect includes proper conservation of polluted lakes with an area of more than 1 hectare. The river action plan includes appropriate measures to be taken to curb pollution of all major rivers in State.

Training manpower for proper and effective management and care of environmental services, protection and conservation of vital eco-systems like mangroves, encouraging development of easy-to-operate devices for solid waste processing at residential level, development of ‘effective and powerful’ area environmental mechanism, ensuring people’s participation in the process of obtaining environmental clearances for various projects, comprehensive waste/sewage management, research on and development of green and viable alternatives to depleting natural resources, redressal of local environmental issues through people’s participation, preparing coastal area management plan and steps to ensure its implementation are other areas included in the draft document.

Development of industry-specific pollution control mechanism, easy compilation of information on various environmental issues and pollution control equipment, and creating extensive database on natural resources in Western Ghats, are the last but not least aspects dealt with in Vision-2020 document of the Environment Department. 

(Published in The Hitavada CityLine on July 18, 2013)