Rajasthan assembly elections: No word on environment by parties irks activists

JODHPUR

: Not mentioning a word for the environment protection and

wildlife

conservation by the BJP or Congress in their manifestos has irked environmentalists and wildlife enthusiasts.


Expressing their concern for this indifference of the political parties to the issues pertaining to environment, these environmentalists have said that none of the governments in the state have exhibited any determination to restore the lost forest cover, check illegal mining or protect natural habitats of wildlife including the endangered ones.

State head of the People for Animals, Babu Lal Jaju said that the forest cover has come down to 9% from 13.5% in the state, lakhs of hectares of forest land was under encroachment, 31 peaks of Aravali range have completely vanished and major rivers like Chambal and Banas stood threatened due to sand mining.

“But even this grim scenario has not budged the political parties from their gross apathy,” Jaju said adding that even the raps of the high court, supreme court and NGT have miserably failed to bring these parties in line. Sharing more data pointing to a grim situation, Jaju said that the tigers have fallen from 40,000 at the time of independence to a miserable 2,226 now and 5,000 GIB have fallen to a meager 50 now.

A professor associated with environmental studies at a state university, said that the environment has never been an issue for the political parties. “On the contrary, they have thrived on the violation of environmental laws and court’s direction, be it forest protection, mining control or water or soil pollution,” he said.

He said that because of depleting forest and drying water bodies due to unabashed encroachment and unplanned urbanisation, many of the species of birds and animals have already gone extinct and many are on the verge of extinction.

But the manifesto negligence apart, there are the candidates who on their own level have mentioned the issue in their poll promises but only because this is one of the important issues of those constituencies. With a promise to address the contaminated Bandi river in Pali and Jojari river in Jodhpur’s Luni due to industrial effluent, their respective candidates Mahaveer Singh Sukarlai and Mahendra Bishnoi have assured to resolve the problems.