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How MGNREGS transformed rural India in an environmentally sustainable manner

MGNREGS — this is the 15th year of the scheme — has turned around lives, mainly through its natural resource management (NRM) works which includes a large number of waters harvesting structures and soil moisture conservation works To quench the thirst of her cattle, Raina Devi had to chase her cows and goats to a hand pump and pump water for them so each one could get their day’s share of drinking water. This was eight years ago. Such was the water crisis in her village that most villagers couldn’t think of growing wheat or other crops ever. Since women in her village got their Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) job cards, the village and their lives have undergone a dramatic transformation. “Women have found dignity. I did not have money to buy even chillies or salt on my own. Now I have enough money in my bank account to care for my children and household needs. There is enough water for our cattle and a beautiful grazing ground that we have made for them under MGNREGS. We can also comfortably grow food and fodder crops,” says Raina Devi over the phone from Bhawanipura in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara. West Bengal chief Mminister Mamata Banerjee addresses a rally on the last day of the campaign for the 2nd phase of assembly elections, in Nandigram on Tuesday, March 30. (PTI) In Raina Devi’s village, three water harvesting structures (WHS) have been constructed on the common land for improved water availability. Water availability in around 12 wells near pastures has improved immensely, improving water availability for agriculture and crop diversification, according to assessments by Foundation of Ecological Security which has been working with women there. Around 158 acres of commons are covered under MGNREGS in Bhawanipura which includes digging trenches, making bunds, bori bunds, boundary trench, grass seeding and planting of native tree species such as Desi Babool (Acacia Nilotica), Ber (Ziziphus), Khejdi (Prosopis cineraria), Neem (Azadirachta indica) etc. for improved water, fodder and fuel availability. There are norms for managing restored commons such as monthly meetings of village institutions, rotational grazing, no felling of trees on common land among others. Raina Devi’s story captures how MGNREGS — this is the 15th year of the scheme — has turned around lives, mainly through its natural resource management (NRM) works which includes a large number of waters harvesting structures and soil moisture conservation works. To be sure, the scheme has come under criticism, but it has played a key role in transforming rural India in an environmentally sustainable manner, while providing a safety valve to citizens in distress and in need for work, visible during the pandemic. The nature of MGNREGS work The MGNREGS Act, which came into force on February 2, 2006, guarantees at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a year to those households whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. In phase I, it was introduced in the 200 most backward districts in the country, and 130 additional districts in phase II during 2007-08. The remaining districts were covered in phase III after 2008. In 2014, MGNREGA Schedule-I was amended, which mandated that at least 60% expenditure will be on agriculture and allied activities. Consequently, a list of permissible works under the Act now include nearly 75% activities that directly improve water recharge and water conservation efforts. The major works taken up under NRM include check dams, ponds, renovation of traditional water bodies, land development, embankment, field bunds, field channels, plantations, trenches etc. In 2020-21 alone 298,323 water related works worth ₹8,80,917.25 were carried out according to data on MGNREGS website. According to an analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment, based on data from MGNREGA management information system, in the last 15 years, 30 million water conservation-related works; or 50 works/village were taken up. Potentially, these structures conserved 28,741 million cubic metres of water which can fill up, say the entire area of the Udaisagar lake in Udaipur, the analysis said. “We think 100 days’ guaranteed employment is only a limited aspect of MGNREGS, in fact an ornamental one. It is much more than that. We visited 16 villages where MGNREGS was implemented 2006 onwards and saw the transformation ourselves. By law, MGNREGS has to devote 60% of all works to water-related structures. This has helped immensely in countering drought, harvesting water in parched areas, making agriculture and cattle rearing possible and arresting migration of people from these villages. It’s a climate adaptation strategy. The government should study the scheme’s potential carefully,” said Richard Mahapatra at Centre for Science and Environment. The human impact Rukmani Devi of Kundeli village in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand district said each of the 200 women in her village who are engaged in MGNREGS works earn nearly ₹20,000 a year. “It’s not small. For women who couldn’t earn anything, its very significant. But I think we have benefitted more by building common water harvesting structures. For example, because of the grazing ground, we have developed we now keep a large number of cattle. The cattle give us milk which helps support the nutrition of our children. A water source for our cattle was 5km away before these structures were developed. Now there is water available during all seasons in our wells also.” Also Read | ‘Spend every penny under MNREGA for water conservation, supply’: PM Modi Around 350 families are able to grow crops such as wheat, mustard and gram etc after the implementation of MGNREGS here. The scheme also turned out to be a life saviour for many who returned back to their villages during the Covid 19 lockdown. “Many women came to seek help. We helped them get job cards. They have worked with us in building some major structures this year. They will not return to the cities — Mumbai, Surat, Delhi anymore because they can see how MGNREGS can help them sustain here,” said Leela Devi, also from Kundeli. In Bihar, which witnessed the return of around 2.5 million migrants during Covid 19 lockdown last year, MGNREGS helped the state government to provide instant jobs. Principal secretary, rural development department, Arvind Chaudhary said about 2.174 million man days of work were created under MGNREGS this year (2020-21) as compared to 1.427 million man days last year. “During the pandemic, when a large number of migrants were forced back to their villages, programmes like MGNREGS provided critical support through wage employment and helped them cope with the crisis. This, combined with restoration and creation of durable community assets like water harvesting structures and regeneration of grazing lands have contributed to the resilience of local agriculture and livestock production systems, said Sanjay Joshie, Executive Director, Foundation for Ecological Security. He added that the scheme has been crucial in improving the resilience of rural economies and mitigating the impact of climate crisis. HT visited Kokdakhar, a village in Chhattisgarh’s Kabirdhan district in 2019, where farmers were bracing for their crops to fail for the second year in a row because of an erratic monsoon. The only resource that was helping them tide over monsoon vagaries was a large earthen dam, 4.5m deep and 62m long, that the villagers particularly tribal women toiled for months to build. The dam captures the flow from ridge to valley, stores water and arrests erosion. Tiharo Bai, who was among the 1,100 people who has built the dam, farm ponds and check dams under MGNREGS, said the assets had become life savers. “We got some money under the 100 days scheme when there was no work. We also got water to survive the drought. There are only three hand pumps, everything else has run dry,” said Tiharo Bai, who belongs to the Baiga tribe. Returning to where it all began Bandlapalli, a sleepy village in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapuramu district hit national headlines on February 2, 2006, when the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh launched the MGNREGS here. Bandlapalli, with a population of 2,560 people, was perennially drought-affected and witnessed distress migration of labourers due to lack of sufficient water to raise any crops. But, one-and-a-half decades later, Bandlapalli has become a role model for others in implementing water conservation schemes, thanks to MGNREGS. According to the project director of Anantapuramu District Water Management Agency, N Venugopal Reddy, MGNREGS has transformed the lifestyle of the villagers who used to migrate to long distances in search of livelihood. “Distress migration has halted. Every eligible person was given the job card and works were taken up for creation of water storage infrastructure to store runaway water from hill slopes,” he said. The government took up construction of “staggered trenches” with a gap of three to four metres between two trenches, which served as a sort of watersheds to capture water from the streams passing through the hill slopes. These water ponds have not only improved the groundwater table to a large extent, but also helped development of greenery that retained moisture. The villages were able to raise horticulture crops and regular crops like maize, Bengal gram and green gram. The groundwater table in the village has increased substantially by 12.6 metres. “Now, there is a perennial water source in the village,” Reddy said. According to official figures, in the last 15 years, as many as 517,000 man days of work were created in Bandlapalli, and an amount of ₹9.33 crore was spent on MGNREGS works, including ₹7.92 crore towards the wage component. As many as 2,128 households were provided 100 days wage employment during this period. The place where India’s most ambitious rural employment scheme began 15 years ago is, today, reaping the dividends of this avatar of India’s welfare state.

CSE Report Reveals How Harvesting Raindrop is Transforming Lives

Water-stressed communities in rural and urban Nigeria will benefit from a new report on the benefits of harvesting raindrop for use in daily living, published on World Water Day, recently. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a public interest research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi India, and a fortnightly magazine, Down To Earth, have published a special ground-report on villages using employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) not for drought relief, but for relief against drought. “By putting water conservation at its core, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has the power to transform India’s rural landscape and changing the lives of the country’s poor –our new nation-wide survey has found. What better way to mark the World Water Day than by celebrating this unheralded success story of rural India’s water warriors, our JalYodhas?” said Sunita Narain, director general, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and editor of the fortnightly, Down To Earth, recently inaugurated a webinar which featured the highlights of the report on villages that have made the transformation from drought to prosperity. The webinar brought together the JalYodhas – the representatives of the villages who have made this possible. Down To Earth and CSE had organised the webinar to release their findings of a country-wide survey of the impacts of MGNREGA after 15 years of its implementation. “Fourteen reporters of Down To Earth have travelled across the length and breadth of the country at a time when a pandemic was raging. They have covered 16 villages in 15 districts of as many states, and brought back incredible stories from the ground,” says Down To Earth managing editor Richard Mahapatra. He adds that finding the villages which had successfully executed MGNREGA was difficult as no recordsare kept of the sustainability of the works that have been undertaken under this programme. “The government only keeps a record of the ‘number’ of works done, and of whether they have been completed. But what is not known is if the structure built under MGNREGA has improved the water security of the village, or has contributed, as it should, to livelihood improvements. This is what our Down To Earth reporters wanted to find out,” says Mahapatra. As per government records, since 2006 more than 30 million water conservation-related ecological assets have been created; this totals to some 50 water structures in every village of India. Calculations show that these structures have potentially conserved roughly 29,000 million cubic meters of water in this period and have the potential to irrigate some 19 million hectares. “But harnessing the potential of these water structures requires that it is well planned and durable. In this way, it is not about distress employment during drought; but it will use the employment for relief against drought,” says Narain. The districts that the magazine has covered include the following: Ananthapuramu (Andhra Pradesh), Jalaun (Uttar Pradesh), Tikamgarh and Sidhi (Madhya Pradesh), Balangir (Odisha), Pakur (Jharkhand), Bankura (West Bengal), Kaimur (Bihar), Jalna (Maharashtra), Palakkad (Kerala), Nagapattinam (Tamil Nadu), Dungarpur (Rajasthan), Sirsa (Haryana), Chitradurga (Karnataka), Ranga Reddy (Telangana) and Sabarkantha (Gujarat). The groundreports have brought back stories of how water conservation has changed the very face of the village and its development. Says the Down To Earthstory: “We visited Bandlapalli in Telangana’sAnanthapuramu district, the village from where MGNREGA was launched in February 2006 by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Distress migration has stopped there and the village is drought-proof now. In Barmani village in Madhya Pradesh’s Sidhi district – we had visited this village 15 years ago when MGNREGA was just being rolled out – migrant labourers have come back to resume farming after implementing massive water conservation programmes.” “In Kerala’s Pookkottukavu village, MGNREGA has given birth to the country’s “largest group of trained women well diggers”. Such is the obsession with water conservation under the scheme that they have revived an entire river. Along with it, village after village has reaped a rich harvest in terms of increase in agricultural productivity and the resultant economic returns. In the perennially drought stricken Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and MP, there are villages that have used the programme to become water-surplus.” Narain says: “Water is a determinant of our present and future. With climate change we will see more rain and more heat and in this the management of water will be our make or break. Water security is also crucial for livelihood security. It builds resilience and the ability to cope with weather adversities. The MGNREGA is the world’s largest social security and climate risk management programme.” Adds Mahapatra: “One of the big findings of the report is that villages have reaped economic and environmental benefits of water conservation works defying all odds. This has only been possible due to the persistence and diligence of the water warriors in India’s villages. Every panchayat is mandated to make a five-year plan to implement MGNREGA. Our investigations have found that these plans are zealously pursued. Construction of the structures is locally controlled and gives people a sense of ownership. Therefore, they reflect local needs.” In its analysis, Down To Earth says “every pond and tank is a development instrument. MGNREGA has created millions of them. Thus, by any parameter, MGNREGA is also the country’s largest water conservation exercise. But, after 15 years, it is time we stopped counting the works in number. Government must now measure the potential harvested of these instruments. For this, it must turn its focus to track the impacts of water harvesting structures created in terms of impacts on local land and water resources. Our stories point at constant monitoring and maintenance of water works by communities so that they keep working. As government data shows half of water structures are either left unfinished or turn defunct after a few years due to lack of maintenance. This is a wasted opportunity.” Narain gives a call to action: “For the moment, on this World Water Day 2021, let’s celebrate the good news – the potential of using water as an agent of change. It shows change is possible. It is thriving in these villages. It should become the lighthouse for others.”

India plans 1200Km E-Highway on Delhi-Mumbai

The Modi government plans to construct an e-highway, Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, through a 1,300 km long road project. As a result of rapid urbanization, India’s vehicular pollution has increased at an alarming rate. And this unbelievable speed of motorization can be seen by the rising number of registered vehicles in the country. The Indian population increased 700 times between 1951 and 2015, from 0.3 to 210 million. This is according to the environmental study Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The public transport system states, “Every car or two-wheeler trip pollutes seven to 14 times more than a trip made in a bus in New Delhi.” The Delhi-Mumbai Highway project The Indian government’s recent efforts to develop electric vehicles are a leapfrog to Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) emissions standards. The new vehicle scrappage policy reflects the Centre’s commitment to addressing pollution concerns. Presently, the union transport ministry is considering a more innovative solution to control its vehicle pollution. It’s looking to construct a separate highway on the 1,300 Km long Delhi-Mumbai Expressway. This highway can make trucks and buses run at a speed of 120 Kmph. In May 2019, Germany introduced the technology on 6 miles long stretch near Frankfurt city. It uses 670-volt DC overhead cables. This let electric trucks draw down power and recharge their batteries on the Movement. Furthermore, on Thursday, the Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari said, “the company- Siemens has used this technology and constructed a similar road in Germany.” The e-Highway Specification Siemens says that the technology, without significant effort, can be integrated and operated within the existing road infrastructure. It can also combine the efficiency of electrified railroads with trucks’ flexibility and energy consumption while maintaining full mobility. At the moment, the plan is yet to be approved. However, the Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari estimate that the step would bring the logistics cost down by 70%. Moreover, the upcoming Delhi-Mumbai highway project construction work will be completed in 51 packages. Once the project work is completed, the Delhi-Mumbai highway length will be 1,320 km. Then this highway is set to become one of the country’s longest expressways. Earlier, it has been reported that with the opening of the Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, the travel time between the national capital and financial capital would reduce to 12 to 13 hours from 24 hours. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway project also offers easier connectivity to Kota, Jaipur, Chittorgarh, Ujjain, Indore, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, and Vadodara. Besides, once this highway is opened, travel time and distance reduction are expected to have significant economic benefits.

Jharkhand activist to speak at international webinar

Aloka to raise discrimination against tribals and women and suppression of voices Ranchi-based tribal and women’s rights activist Aloka Kujur will represent India as a speaker at a webinar as part of the Israel Apartheid Week campaign of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (a Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments and economic sanctions against Israel) on April 3. Kujur will be speaking at the webinar whose theme is “Crack in the Wall: Resistance to Racism and Discrimination in Asia Pacific”. “I got a call from the Delhi unit of BDS on Sunday evening informing me about the webinar. I will be speaking on discrimination against tribal people and women in Jharkhand and in our country and the suppression of voices raised against such discrimination by the current BJP-led government,” she said. Kujur, who was in Jamshedpur on Sunday evening, has written several research papers on tribal and women’s rights, especially on atrocities committed against them in stone mines and bidi factories. She had been at the forefront of the protest demanding the release of jailed octogenarian Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy. She said that there will be selected activists from New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia at the webinar who will share their views on racial discrimination in their own country. Kujur had written on the witch-hunting menace prevailing in the state in the Jharkhand Encyclopaedia and is a member of the National Alliance for People’s Movement (NAPM). She is also a recipient of the National Foundation for Media Fellowship, the Jharkhand government media fellowship and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) award. She has also written the script for the documentary Burugadha (rivers of hills) in 2008, which received an award from the then President Pratibha Patil. Kujur has been at the forefront of raising her voice against alleged fake encounters of tribals in the name of anti-Maoist operations, displacement related issues, etc. Israel Apartheid Week is a tool for mobilising grassroots support on the global level for the Palestinian struggle for justice. It is a grassroots mechanism to raise awareness about Israeli “apartheid” and to mobilise support for strategic BDS campaigns to help bring an end to this system of oppression. It provides an opportunity to network and strengthen the links between the Palestinian liberation struggle and other struggles against racism, oppression and discrimination.

Report lauds city’s effort to curb pollution

A new report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) states that though Delhi has to reduce the level of a major pollutant in the air by 60%, the city has done more to curb air pollution than other cities in the country. The report ‘Capital Gains-Clean Air Action in Delhi NCR: What next?’, lays down a roadmap on what the national capital and NCR towns should be doing to curb air pollution in the region.The measures to be taken range from changes in cropping patterns to reduce cultivation of paddy and from minimising stubble burning to scaling up pedestrianisation in high footfall areas to create low emissions zones. “Delhi has seen it [PM2.5] drop by almost a quarter. But even after this drop, Delhi has to reduce the three-year running annual average of PM2.5 by yet another 60%,” it said. Talking about industrial pollution, the report said that Delhi has seen more progress, but that is partly because a lot of industries could be shifted out of Delhi to neighbouring NCR, while continuing to “pollute” the common airshed. “Delhi requires stringent enforcement of approved fuel notification. Even though Delhi has adopted one of the most progressive clean fuel policies, its implementation remains a challenge as entry and illegal use of dirty fuels in informal industry clusters has continued,” the report read. The report said that Delhi have closed down all its coal power plants, but it has to ensure that it procures only clean or cleaner electricity from plants that are meeting the standards or are close to meeting the standards. “Currently, Delhi is procuring electricity from some of the dirtier power plants in the country,” the report said. Stating that Delhi has done well in restricting the entry of diesel trucks, the report said: “NCR cities will also require a well thought out strategy to address heavy duty traffic by rationalising movement patterns, routes and logistic infrastructure, spacing of warehouses/wholesale marts, entry points, and timing.” On vehicular pollution, it said that government should strengthen periodic auditing of Pollution Under Control (PUC) centres and calibration of equipment and third-party checks. Also, vehicle labelling or sticker programme to identify old and polluting vehicles, as directed by the Supreme Court should be implemented. The report said that Delhi’s bus service reforms must be “accelerated”. “CSE review has shown how bus ridership in Delhi has declined steadily since 2014 and bus procurement has been considerably delayed in Delhi and needs to be accelerated. While bus numbers fall woefully short of the court mandated 10,000–11,000 buses, there is also a huge service deficit. However, reforms have started to rationalise the routes and improve tracking of services, along with increasing use of electronic ticketing systems and public information system,” it said.

India Plans 1200 Km E-Highway On Delhi-Mumbai Expressway For Electric Vehicles

With the rapid urbanisation, vehicular pollution in India has grown at an alarming rate. And this staggering pace of motorisation can be seen by the rising number of registered vehicles in the country, which went up 700 times from 0.3 million in 1951 to 210 million in 2015, according to a report by environment think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). “Every trip made in a car or two-wheeler pollutes around seven to 14 times more than a trip made in a bus in Delhi,” the study added, stressing the need for an overhaul in our public transport system. Traffic Jam BCCL The government’s recent efforts to promote electric vehicles, a leapfrog to Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) emissions standards as well as the new vehicle scrappage policy reflects the Centre’s commitment to address pollution concerns. And now, the union transport ministry is thinking of a more innovative solution. It’s looking to construct a separate 'e-highway' on the 1,300-kilometre-long Delhi-Mumbai Expressway where trucks and buses can run at a speed of 120 kmph. Siemens eHighway in Germany Siemens This road freight transport powered by electricity is expected to be similar to that in Germany, which introduced the technology on a six-mile-long stretch near the city of Frankfurt in May 2019. It uses 670-volt direct-current overhead cables which let electric trucks draw down power and recharge their batteries on the go. Although the plan is yet to be approved, the Road Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari estimates that the step would bring the logistics cost down by 70 per cent. Not to mention the environment benefits that come with it. Siemens says that the technology can be integrated and operated within the existing road infrastructure without significant effort and combines the efficiency of electrified railroads with the flexibility of trucks, halving energy consumption while maintaining full mobility.

AMR is deadlier than Covid-19, but action on it is slow – Health experts

We are running out of time in the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR). We do not have the luxury of words anymore, we need action and we need it now,” Director-General for India-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), Sunita Narain, told a three-day Africa-Asia Virtual Meeting on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). The CSE’s Virtual Webinar provided an opportunity to discuss how to address the scourge of AMR through the ‘One-Health’ approach. AMR is a phenomenon whereby disease-causing microbes become resistant to drugs designed to kill them. An estimated 700 thousand deaths occur annually worldwide as a result of AMR. Scientists say if the world does not act by 2050, 10 million lives will be endangered each year due to the phenomenon, and 90 per cent of them will come from Africa and Asia. One-Health approach implies greater synergy among human, animal, environmental health sectors and emerges as an optimal response to AMR. Sunita Narain says One-Health should focus on transforming the global and national food system. “To be true to its name, One-Health needs to focus on global and national food system transformation. It needs to work intensely on animal health. It needs to recognise the role and importance of the environment with regards to AMR. And it needs to achieve all this in the context of national and local backgrounds, which vary widely and may have specific requirements,” he said While the need to address AMR has been recognised globally and institutionalised through national action plans (NAPs), progress on the on-ground has been slow. “How do we make progress on NAPs? We need to prioritise and focus on low-hanging fruits and accept that we cannot do everything at the same time. We need political support. We also need to make AMR everybody’s business”, Said Anuj Sharma, technical officer-AMR, Lab and IPC, WHO Country Office for India. Anthony D So of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (USA) said that there is a need to find political funding for action. “We need to find the political will to muster funding for NAPs and other AMR action.” The workshop, titled ‘Containing the Silent Pandemic’, was organised by CSE to discuss the future agenda to address the scourge of AMR through the ‘One-Health’ approach. Programme Director for Food Safety and Toxins Unit of the centre, Amit Khurana, further explained that “low and middle-income countries agendas should be given due importance when designing global guidelines on containment of AMR.” According to him, the financial, social and environmental realities in the Global South do not translate into a universal protocol of action. Narain also highlighted important programs to prevent AMR. “We cannot follow the trajectory of the developed world in the developing world, of first polluting and then cleaning. The cost of cleaning is high and we cannot afford it. Therefore, we need a preventative agenda in the developing world, to minimise pollution due to an overuse of antimicrobial drugs.” Many panelists talk about the slow pace of action on AMR, a pandemic deadlier than COVID-19. The need to rope in all stakeholders, civil society, media, educators, students, among others to raise awareness about AMR was on the table for discussion. Head of Drug-Resistant Infections Priority Programme at Wellcome Trust, Timothy Jinks, gives a cautionary note that the issue of tackling AMR is complex but it should not be allowed to become a barrier to act. “The issue of tackling AMR is complex, but this complexity should not be allowed to become a barrier to act. We have enough information and clarity to act. We must act now. Time is running out,” he said. Over 100 experts from 26 countries, including Ghana, attended the workshop. Speakers from Botswana, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, also addressed the issue. Other countries included Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Iran, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Delhi has bent pollution curve, says report

New Delhi: A new report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has claimed that long-term trend shows Delhi has already bent the pollution curve downwards and the annual level of particulate matter, PM2.5, is declining every year. Titled ‘Capital Gains-Clean Air Action in Delhi NCR: What next?’, the report lays down a roadmap on what the national capital and NCR towns should be doing to curb air pollution in the region. The measures to be taken range from changes in cropping patterns to reduce cultivation of paddy to reduce stubble burning to scaling up pedestrianisation in high footfall areas to create low emissions zones. “The rolling three-year averages, a firmer indicator of change, have reduced by about a quarter since 2014–15… However, even after that decline, Delhi needs more than 60 per cent cut in annual PM2.5 concentration to meet the national ambient air quality standards,” it said. Multi-sector action has to gather speed, scale, and urgency. This requires strategic shifts to achieve mobility transition, clean energy transition, circular economy at a scale, and clean energy access at a regional scale, the group said.

In Some Good News For Delhi, The Toxic Pollution May Be Coming Down, PM2.5 On The Decline

Over the past few years, Delhi and its adjoining areas have gained notoriety for having some of the most polluted air in the world. In 2020, for the first time in many years, Delhi-NCR saw blue skies and clean air, partly due to the lockdown. While the lockdowns may have helped, it however is not the only factor at work. Delhi Pollution BCCL/FILE PM2.5 declining every year A new report has said that the long-term trend shows Delhi has already bent the pollution curve downwards and the annual level of particulate matter, PM2.5, is declining every year. The report titled "Capital Gains-Clean Air Action in Delhi NCR: What next?" by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). "The rolling three-year averages, a firmer indicator of change, have reduced by about a quarter since 2014–15… However, even after that decline, Delhi needs more than 60 per cent cut in annual PM2.5 concentration to meet the national ambient air quality standards," the report said. Delhi Air Quality BCCL Multi-sector action has to gather speed, scale, and urgency. This requires strategic shifts to achieve mobility transition, clean energy transition, circular economy at a scale, and clean energy access at a regional scale, the green advocacy group said. Our Popular Products See More It said that further measures ranging from changes in cropping patterns to reduce cultivation of paddy to reduce stubble burning to scaling up pedestrianisation in high footfall areas to create low emissions zones should be taken. After the ban on furnace oil and petcoke in the industrial sector, coal will also have to be replaced with clean fuels. Delhi's most ambitious clean fuel policy Delhi has implemented the most ambitious clean fuel policy that has also outlawed coal. But the airshed cannot clean up if coal combustion remains dominant in industrial clusters of the NCR, the report said. Delhi Pollution BCCL "The implementation of 2015 emissions standards for coal-based thermal power plants has to be done in a time-bound manner by 2022. The plants are already capable of meeting the particulate standards," it said. "While scaling up action for the entire region, there is urgent need for the hyper local action agenda in the targeted polluted hotspots so that the local solutions for solid waste, construction and demolition waste, industrial waste, plastics, and unpaved roads and vehicular movement can be implemented," the CSE report read. It said Delhi has closed down all its coal power plants, but it has to ensure that it procures only clean or cleaner electricity from plants that are meeting the standards or are close to meeting the standards. "Currently, Delhi is procuring electricity from some of the dirtier power plants in the country," the report said. Air Pollution BCCL Stating that Delhi has done well in restricting the entry of diesel trucks, the report said, "NCR cities will also require a well thought-out strategy to address heavy duty traffic by rationalising movement patterns, routes and logistic infrastructure, spacing of warehouses/wholesale marts, entry points, and timing." On vehicular pollution, it said that the government should strengthen periodic auditing of Pollution Under Control (PUC) centres and calibration of equipment and third-party checks. Recently another report had said that toxic fumes emanating from the 12 thermal power plants located in the 300km-radius of Delhi could be killing 218 people each year in the national capital. According to the study by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found that estimated 4,830 annual deaths nationally due to emissions from power plants. Out of this, 682 was across Delhi-NCR.

Beekeeping In India: Bitter Truth About Honey In India

In 2013 India started using Neonicotinoid pesticides in order to protect a crop that Monsanto had promised the Indian farmer he would not have to use pesticides on. These are the worst pesticides in the world and they have been indicted for having killed billions of bees on the planet. I called a meeting of ICAR in 2014 to ask for the ban of these pesticides. ICAR refused, even though they admitted that the bee population has gone down sharply. They said cotton was more important than fruit, grain, and flowers which are dependent on bee pollination! If the bees have gone down in number drastically, how has the honey production tripled? Till 2013 the yearly growth rate was only 0-4.8%. From 2013-14 the growth rate rocketed from 5.3 to 11.1 %. This could not have happened naturally. How have hundreds of honey companies come into the market? This question has always troubled me. I don’t eat honey. Last month the environment magazine, Down to Earth, answered this question in a deeply detailed investigation that they took months over. You should read it. We do not take food adulteration seriously and yet it is the highest form of corruption and should have the death penalty on it.I will attempt to encapsulate what they have discovered, but again, I repeat, go onto their website and read the expose. Let’s start with the basics: Honey is eaten because it is known to be an antioxidant and has anti-microbial (killing germs) properties. It is expensive to create because thousands of bees have to be maintained and fed a steady diet of flowers. Sugar has no nutrient value and is known to add weight and cause chronic disease. It is cheap. The FSSAI is the government organisation in charge of food standards. In 2017 the FSSAI ordered that honey should be tested for adulteration with corn, sugarcane, rice, and beetroot syrups. The test was called C3 and C4. The tests were isotope tests, SMR, TMR, foreign oligosaccharides tests, and pollen counts. In 2019, FSSAI mysteriously issued a directive revising, and downgrading, the parameters and allowing the adulteration to go undetected. The Director of the National Bee Board told Down to Earth that he had written a letter to the government saying that by reducing pollen count FSSAI has legalized the practice of adulterating and selling rice syrup and corn syrup as honey. The cheating of the consumer, by honey processors, has been legalized “You can understand why”.By now the companies selling honey have increased massively and become very powerful. Baba Ramdev had jumped in as well. But strangely enough, the honey farmers were all going bankrupt because these companies had stopped buying their honey. So, we have a huge honey industry that uses no honey?So, what do the “honey” bottles contain? Sugar syrup imports into India from China have increased steadily. Fructose and glucose syrup was being imported from China to India in bulk amounts. In 2014, 10,000 MT came in. By 2017 it was more than 4,300 MT. These syrups are imported under the names of “Fructose syrup (F55/F42)”, “Honey blend syrup”, “Tapioca fructose syrup”, “Golden fructose glucose syrup”, even “Fructose Rice Syrup for Honey”. Anyone from India can look up the marketing portals like Alibaba, Okchem, and Tradewheel, and order from a host of Chinese companies. The FSSAI issued directives to sugar importers saying they had evidence that this Chinese import was being used to adulterate honey. The FSSAI announced in 2020 that the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) was now mandatory for any company exporting honey (the Indian consumer is expendable, of course, so the standards for detecting adulteration in honey remained the low ones revised in 2019.) Did the fructose syrup import stop? No. It simply changed its name. The Chinese were not hiding their product. On all the large Chinese portals they were advertising a sugar syrup called the All-Pass Syrup. The advertisements claim that the chemical mixture, called syrup, can pass the honey adulteration tests – C 3, C4, TMR, SMT, Oligosaccharides, and even NMR!! Companies in India are importing this chemical mixture, which was being sent to India in some cases as “industrial raw material”, and even “paint mixture”, from China. 11,000 tonnes of this mixture have come in annually. Nasik, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab. The factories that make this syrup are all “legitimate food processing businesses.” The FSSAI chooses to look the other way. Down to Earth ordered samples online from two Chinese suppliers called Wuhu Foods and CNN Foods. In their order, they specifically stated that they wanted this syrup to pass all the government tests. Both companies wrote that their product could pass any Indian tests, even if the adulteration was up to 80%, and added that their Indian clients used this percentage in their so-called honey bottles. The samples that FedEx brought in simply said “syrup” and “paint pigment emulsion.” Down to Earth took pure raw honey and mixed it themselves with the Chinese and Indian adulterants (from a company in Jaspur) in different proportions – from 25% to 75% – and sent these to the Gujarat based lab Centre for Analysis and Learning in Livestock and Food (CALF) of the National DairyDevelopment Board. The samples passed all the tests up to 75% adulteration! In August 2020, Down to Earth bought honey marketed by 13 companies and sent them to the same Gujarati Laboratory. All the large companies passed the tests except for Apis Himalaya Honey (they probably put more than 75%!) Three of the smaller brands: Dadev, Hi Honey, and Societe Naturelle, failed and even the C 3 test showed that they had more than 20-27% cane sugar. All these three are labelled as Raw Unprocessed Natural Honey! But Down to Earth did not stop there. They sent all the brands for the gold standard test – the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Test (NMR). Dabur and Saffola have put it on their bottles that their honey has passed the NMR test. There is only one testing point in India – the Export Inspection Council (EIC) in Mumbai. They refused to do the tests. So, Down to Earth contacted a well-known German Lab, which specializes only in honey adulteration tests including the NMR, and sent the samples – from the same batch that had passed the tests in Gujarat. They sent 17 samples from these 13 companies: Patanjali, Baidyanatha, Zandu, Saffola, Markfed Sohna, Nature’s Nectar, Dabur, Apis Himalaya, Hitkari, Dadev, Indigenous, Hi Honey, Societe Naturelle. Only three companies passed the tests: Saffola, Markfed Sohna, and Nature’s Nectar. All the others FAILED – including Dabur and Saffola, who put it on their labels that their honey has passed the NMR Tests. This means only these three companies are selling us, pure honey. The rest are all massively adulterated with chemical sugar syrup. In any other country, these people would be in jail and the company would be shut down. The Down to Earth article is meticulous in its exposure. But FSSAI has ignored the expose. FSSAI is implicated in the scandal – after all, they agreed to previous attempts at adulteration by deliberately lowering the standards for the large honey companies. These honey companies have even failed the lowered standards of adulteration – with no action being taken against them. During the COVID lockdown, people went all out to improve their health. Honey sales from March 2020 went up by 35%. But instead of making their bodies healthier, people were starting the day with shots of sugar syrup, which is just poison. Sugar increases the inflammation in the body, suppresses immunity, and makes the body vulnerable to diseases, including diabetes, and Corona.

Polluted Air Is Rife in Uttar Pradesh – but Not Yet in Its Corridors of Power

Nine of the world’s top 10 most polluted cities are in India. Seven are in the world’s largest subnational entity and the hotbed of Indian politics – Uttar Pradesh. Both these details are according to a new report by IQAir. Another study, presented through the Air Quality Life Index report, has found that Uttar Pradesh’s air is so bad that residents of the state capital, Lucknow, could lose 10.3 years of their life expectancy on average if the pollution persists. Lucknow has the highest level of pollution in the country, fully 11-times more than WHO limits. The IQAir report’s findings are based on concentrations of PM2.5 particles, considered to be most harmful to human health. It’s also notable that the data they analysed was from 2020, when pollution levels dropped to varying degrees around the country thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown. Vinod Pandey, a middle-aged government official in Lucknow, said it’s hard for him to digest the findings because “I don’t really feel anything as such. The air seems the usual.” But S.N. Tripathi, a professor at IIT Kanpur and member of the steering committee, National Clean Air Programme, called the city’s air “absolutely bad”. And for the world’s first female amputee mountaineer, Arunima Sinha, the statistic is appalling. “Who better than me can understand the importance of clean air? I almost died from lack of oxygen while climbing Mount Everest,” she said.” And when I get to know how bad the air quality is in my native state and the city where I live, I feel deeply disturbed. Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director of research and advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, wasn’t surprised, however. “Uttar Pradesh is vulnerable to elevated pollution levels because it lies in the land-locked Indo-Gangetic plain,” she said. “There’s a general lack of awareness and apathy about the implications of poor air quality among the public and policymakers,” Dr Surya Kant, the national president of the Indian Chest Society and head of the department of respiratory medicine at King George Medical University, Lucknow, said. “Is it not sad to see people finding the mask to be a ‘necessary evil’? Apart from protecting from the virus, a mask also protects from the harmful health effects of air pollution. The case is not so with the helmet or the seat belt because there’s a law around it.” Obstetrician, gynaecologist and former director-general (medical and health) of the state Dr Vijaylaxmi said Uttar Pradesh’s air quality isn’t improving despite some government efforts because the issue isn’t yet a “political priority”. CSE’s Chowdhury also said, “Political support is critical to build scale and speed of solutions.” However, “to ensure sustained improvement, the entire region requires time-bound implementation of stringent multi-sector clean air action plans with a strong compliance and monitoring strategy at a scale and speed.” Ashish Tiwari, member secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), refused to comment. However, the regional officer of UPPCB for Lucknow Ram Karan went on the defensive when asked about the new reports, and insisted that “the air quality improved by 20-30% last year” and that the government is making all efforts to improve Lucknow’s air. Tripathi, of IIT Kanpur, has been conducting a Lucknow-centric real-time source apportionment study of air pollution. He couldn’t share data because the study was ongoing but said the numbers suggest that inefficient combustion is a major source of the problem. He also said there will have to be more studies like his before scientists can be sure – following which “scientific evidence-based policymaking” would be “the need of the hour”. “We need more studies, more data, and more monitoring to improve things because air pollution has a direct bearing on human health,” he added. To this end, Tripathi said he had high hopes from the National Knowledge Network, an alliance of experts in support of the National Clean Air Programme. Taken together, Uttar Pradesh can breathe easier if there is more scientific clarity on and political weight attached to the issue. Does this weight exist? Ahead of the state polls in February 2022, many of the bigger parties in the fray seem to think so. Azad Arimardan, the Bahujan Samaj Party legislator from Azamgarh who recently raised the issue in the state assembly, said the state “has some of the most polluted cities in the world and it’s a matter of grave political concern.” Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “government should be ashamed of [IQAir’s] findings” and that it had “defamed the state globally”. Party chief Akhilesh Yadav studied as an environmental engineer, and Chaudhary added, “Environment and better air quality will certainly be an issue this time in the upcoming elections.” “Better air quality, apart from conservation of environment and climate change mitigation, is something that should be of immediate priority for political parties,” Rashtriya Lok Dal party national spokesperson Anupam Mishra said. “Because if not now, then when? For us, it is very much a political issue.” The Indian National Congress struck a similar note, with spokesperson Akhilesh Pratap Singh asking: “Is it not a matter of shame for the Uttar Pradesh government to see ten cities from the state figuring in the world’s top 20 most polluted cities?” The ruling BJP had some reservations about the report, however. Spokesperson Naveen Srivastava said, “We first need to know the authenticity and validity of this report and the claim it has made regarding these cities.” But he also added that “clean air and safe drinking water are not just a political priority for us, they are in fact our commitment to the people of this state.”

Nations comply with FSSAI regulations on GM food imports

The US, Brazil, Russia, and Japan, among other countries, had raised objections to the regulation, contending that it would create a trade barrier and add to the cost borne by exporters Several countries have started issuing genetically modified (GM)-free certificates for imported food crop consignments, after initial resistance to India’s regulation seeking such certificates that became effective on 1 March. The US, Brazil, Russia, and Japan, among other countries, had raised objections to the regulation, contending that it would create a trade barrier and add to the cost borne by exporters. On 21 August 2020, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued an order requiring a “non-GM origin and GM-free certificate", issued by the competent national authority of the exporting country, to accompany all imports of 24 listed food products to India, to become effective beginning 1 January. The date was later revised to 1 March. The tolerance limit for accidental presence of GM is 1% of the imported food crop consignments. The regulation does not apply to processed food at present. Countries such as Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, and Italy have started issuing non-GM certificates, while Turkey, Poland, Iran, Serbia, and Brazil have also agreed to comply with the regulation, according to an FSSAI official who spoke under condition of anonymity. “The US and Argentina have proposed some models for the certification, which we are studying," the official said. A study conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment in 2018 on the prevalence of GM food in India formed the basis of the latest regulations. As much as 32% of the samples tested positive for genetic modification, with 80% of it being imported products, according to the study conducted on both domestic and imported food items. “We are a country with zero tolerance for GM products. We cannot not have regulations on GM prevalence in food items. While other countries complain about our regulations, Indian authorities issued 7,660 non-GM certificates to 98 countries in 2019 on products ranging from sweet corn, soya, and basmati rice," the official said. During India’s latest trade policy review, Japan held that the measure is “unnecessarily trade restrictive" in the light of the policy objective as there is currently no globally available detection method for proving whether a crop is GM or not and virtually no certificate can be provided by the exporting country. Japan even questioned FSSAI’s legal authority to regulate the import of these products. India in its reply to most countries said the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006, empowers the central government to formulate regulations concerning genetically modified articles of food. A query sent to the commerce ministry did not elicit any response till the time of going to the press.

MGNREGA: Greater water security, more jobs

Since 2006, more than 30 million water conservation-related ecological assets have been created; this totals to some 50 water structures in every village of India. These structures have potentially conserved roughly 29,000 million cubic meters of water in this period and have the potential to irrigate some 19 million hectares.“By putting water conservation at its core, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is transforming India’s rural landscape and changing the lives of the country’s poor," said Sunita Narain, Director General, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Editor of Down To Earth, inaugurating a webinar. The webinar featured the highlights of the report on villages that have made the transformation from drought to prosperity. It brought together the Jal Yodhas, the representatives of the villages who have made this possible. “Fourteen reporters of Down To Earth have travelled across the length and breadth of the country at a time when a pandemic was raging, reporting on what this Act has meant for India’s rural hinterland. They have covered 16 villages in 15 districts of as many states, and brought back incredible stories from the ground,” says Down To Earth Managing Editor Richard Mahapatra.Villages in two districts from India’s eastern States were visited by the reporters. They included Bhuanpanda and Mandekhela in Balangir district (Odisha) and Birbandh and Kawatanga in Bankura district (West Bengal). In villages like Bhuanpada and Mandekhela in Balangir district, residents are intelligently reaping the twin benefits of employment available due to MGNREGA and improved agricultural production due to water-focused works under the programme. This has made it financially viable for marginal farmers to stay in their villages. Likely, Birbandh and Kawatanga villagers of Bankura district started managing their watershed areas under MGNREGA in 2017-18. Today, the villages, prone to distress migration, have improved groundwater levels significantly, which has allowed them to cultivate two crops in a year. Mahapatra says that finding the villages which had successfully executed MGNREGA was difficult as no records are kept of the sustainability of the works that have been undertaken under this programme. Narain says, “Water is a determinant of our present and future. With climate change, we will see more rain and more heat; and in this, the management of water will be our make or break. Water security is also crucial for livelihood security. It builds resilience and the ability to cope with weather adversities. The MGNREGA is the world’s largest social security and climate risk management programme.”

Encroachers of govt land/quarters to be penalized, cautions DC Kohima

Kohima: The Deputy Commissioner (DC) Kohima, Gregory Thejawelie NCS today informed the public that number of complaints and reports have been received relating to rampant selling and encroachment of government land that is public land having projects installations for public service delivery, which is viewed seriously by the government. The DC Kohima in the public notice stated that the Government’s endeavour is to provide all requisite support to safeguard the rights of the genuine landowners but at the same time illegal activities of encroachment on government land/government quarters will be dealt with sternly as per the provisions contained in Section 5 (1) and 6 (1) of the Nagaland Eviction of Persons in Unauthorised Occupation of Public Land Act 1971, which entails issuing notice, eviction etc and in case of illegal occupation may invite imprisonment and fine. Further, in the matter of sale and purchase of land within the Government Acquired Area and Land coming under the 1934-35 Map of British conquered area, both the buyer and the seller will be liable for action as this is tantamount to illegal transaction and will attract penalty under appropriate section of law. Therefore, should any private person or group desiring to purchase land in and around Kohima town and other Government acquired areas particularly New Secretariat/Thizama and Lerie area should first obtain necessary clearance from the DC’s Office without which the seller as well as the buyer would be doing so at their own risk and necessary penal action will be initiated as per the relevant provisions of law. ‘This public notice has been issued in the interest of the public and compliance by all concerned,’ the DC stated. Off-loading of construction materials on road in Kohima banned The Deputy Commissioner’s (DC) office Kohima has taken note that there has been random dumping of construction materials on the road thereby causing blockage of drainages and waterways, creating traffic congestions, affecting pedestrian movement and causing general pollution to the air and environment. In this connection, the DC Kohima, Gregory Thejawelie NCS, in the interest of the public safety and property has issued an order stating that dumping/off-loading of construction materials on the road has been banned within Kohima town with immediate effect. It also stated that all such materials have to be immediately removed by the concerned owners. In the exigent case whereby off-loading of such materials is inevitable, concerned owner should ensure that such off-loading and removal be made between 8:00 pm to 7:00 am and not prior or after the scheduled time. The order further stated that failure to adhere to the directive will be penalized as per provisions of the law. Notification on food safety Deputy Commissioner Kohima Gregory Thejawelie has informed the Food Safety Officer in the office of the Chief Medical Officer, Kohima to initiate further necessary action on the matters relating to taking steps or making arrangements to ensure appropriate or authentic brands of honey in the Indian markets and ban or restraining from selling in the market against the adulterated honey sellers companies, shops, malls etc. till investigation or test report of honey is concluded and satisfied Test Report for the human consumption filed by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and other Government Agency.