AQI an acid test of development model
As the AQI levels in Mumbai fall, and the city starts losing its prestige in the international forum, the concerns related to environmental degradation have started making headlines. It is not that such concerns have not been raised in the past, with ‘Save Aarey’ being a major initiative earlier.
The dumping ground concern grows, rehabilitation of slum areas on green zones and salt pans are forced, and the High Courts keep raising the success of replantation programs. At the same time, politicians across parties have always ignored these concerns to protect vested interests and have often painted environmentalists as ‘anti-development’ lunatic fringe, creating only obstruction. They create narratives through various lobbies to discredit environmental concerns.
The pollution of the Yamuna river, an environmental issue, became a centerpiece in political party manifestos for the first time, With only very minor ground-level in achievement in cleaning Yamuna , it is evident was primarily a point of political scoring rather than addressing underlying issues.
With BMC elections around the corner, for the first time a local BJP MLA, has questioned the link between the Metro 4 project and falling AQI levels.
Politicians across parties are always concerned about ground-level popularity. It is possible that Mulund residents, who have become very vocal for the about the deteriorating environment, are putting pressure on the MLA, forcing him to toe a line against the party’s pet projects.
We must acknowledge that development model is faulty. I am sure such a sweeping sentence can potentially be met with a thousand types of reactions, whether expressed explicitly or not.
The development lobby will easily brush aside an armchair activist mourning who does not understand the underlying complexities, realities, hard efforts and engineering excellence required to modernize infrastructure.
. Let us be open to all such criticism, with the only condition that AQI levels should not fall below threshold.
Because nature does not lie
Nature does not believe in theses, arguments, political parties, political sentences, or engineering graphs prepared on drawing boards.
Go to every corporate entity , they will talk only of the bottom line for determining success and not the machinery that makes it. Go to every patient in the hospital, he will only talk about the cure and not the doctor’s qualifications or the list of medicines.
*AQI level needs to be a critical of parameter that should determine the success of development*
*Mumbai is sinking like an old woman gasping for fresh air*.
I hope this concern finds reflection in all political parties’ manifestos for the BMC elections.
*Disclaimer – this is not a political article, has no political agenda; the references are only to drive home the message*
Bol Madhavache 