A Pittance to Save the Priceless

The widening of NH-6 is slicing apart the central Indian forest landscape. WII prescribes flyovers worth Rs 1,200 crore to protect over 15,000 sq km of wilderness but the NHAI worries the cost is too much

Tehelka, 30 June, 2012

FIRST, THE stake: the heart of the central Indian forest landscape and the future of at least 300 tigers in nine reserves across three states. Now the cost: Rs 1,191 crore; reasonable if you consider the Rs 25,360 crore annual budget of the Ministry of Road and Surface Transport. Peanuts when you recall that the Central government annually forgoes revenue worth Rs 5 lakh crore ostensibly to boost growth.
But numbers do not tell the entire story. Biodiversity has no future in isolated pockets. To avoid genetic bottleneck, wildlife must flourish in good numbers across sizeable forest landscapes. A viable tiger population, for example, requires at least 20 breeding females and roughly 80-100 tigers. None of the reserves in central India — not even Tadoba with its 70 tigers — makes the cut.
But since these reserves are connected through forest patches, wild animals move across the landscape and the collective population remains viable through genetic exchange. Melghat, Satpura, Pench, Kanha and Achanakmar form such a connected east-west land-scape to the north of Nagpur. As do Navegaon, Tadoba and Indravati in the south. These two landscapes are connected through a narrow northsouth corridor. Together, more than a dozen pocket populations of tigers have a robust future as a single mega-population of 300-plus individuals.
Four years ago, under the National Highway Development Programme, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) started widening the two-lane NH-6 to four lanes. On both sides of Nagpur, it is creating a deadly barrier few animals will ever attempt to breach.

MAKE NO mistake, NH-6 is one of the most important road links of the county. Running through Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, it connects Surat to Kolkata. When upgrading began along a project length of 80 km in Maharashtra, the NHAI did not even seek the mandatory permission before felling trees to widen this critical link. But since 23.85 km of the road stretch passes through 10 forest patches where diversion of forestland was necessary to maintain a 60m-wide Rightof- Way (RoW), the NHAI sought permission for diversion of 85.050 hectare of forestland.
In June 2009, the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) filed a petition before the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee (CEC) and the CEC suggested construction of underpasses to avoid roadkills. In 2010, NHAI hired two retired forest officers to prepare a mitigation plan. In June 2011, the state Forest Department pointed out a number of inadequacies in that report. In November, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) finally told the state to ask the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) to prescribe a mitigation plan.
Meanwhile, except for just 10.40 km in three forest stretches, the entire project length of 80 km has been widened. At a meeting held in New Delhi on 13 June, the WII presented its recommendations to the NHAI, MoEF, state Forest Department and WTI. TEHELKA has a copy of the report.
In 2011, the state Forest Department and NHAI agreed to reduce the RoW of NH-6 from 60 m to 45 m in the forest stretches. The WII report warns that such a move will result in more roadkill as the road verges (strip of grass or trees beside the carriageway that allows animals to get accustomed to the presence of traffic) will be reduced from 15 m to 7.5 m without influencing the volume of traffic.
The WII report also rules out the option of not upgrading the forest stretches of NH-6. Due to bottlenecking, the time spent by a vehicle in the two-lane segment will increase, leading to additional disturbance. Closely spaced vehicles will ultimately result in creating a physical barrier, the report said.
On the NHAI’s argument that not many road kills have been reported in the forest stretches where NH-6 has already been upgraded, the report says that few animals may even attempt to cross the road. As traffic volume increases, the report explained, the proportion of animals that is simply repelled, and who abandon their attempt to cross the road, increases and eventually this becomes the predominant response to a very busy road.
On an average, 6,000 vehicles use NH-6 in 24 hours. The WII report finds this traffic volume close to the threshold where numbers of animals that may be repelled are equal to the number of animals that may cross the road. Therefore, it prescribed immediate mitigation measures in four key stretches.
In the first forest patch of 6.3 km between Sirpur and Nawatola, where upgrading of the NH-6 has already been completed, the report points out that two box culverts — each 3.05 m in height and 6.10 m in width — are more of drainage structures and too small for wild animal movement. The remedy is to construct two flyovers — of 1 and 2 km length, respectively — in this stretch before animals stop using this area as a corridor.
Similarly, the report recommends construction of another three flyovers — one 2-km long and two 1.5-km long — in three forest stretches to facilitate wildlife movement. Pointing out that road upgrading has bifurcated more than 70 percent of a vital wildlife corridor along the first 15 km of the NH-6 on the Chhattisgarh side, the WII report recommends two flyovers in this stretch. Recently, the Chhattisgarh Forest Department has also submitted before the court expressing similar concerns.

CONTACTED REPEATEDLY, NHAI and MoEF officials refused to go on record. While a formal response from NHAI is awaited, sources tell TEHELKA that the representatives of the NHAI strongly opposed the WII recommendations during the 13 June meeting. Claiming that the flyovers alone would cost Rs 1,191 crore ( Rs 800 crore in the Maharashtra stretches and Rs 391 crore in Chhattisgarh), NHAI officials dubbed the idea “absurd” since the original project cost was just Rs 825 crore (Rs 425 crore in Maharashtra stretches and Rs 400 crore in Chhattisgarh).
Though tight-lipped, a senior official in the Maharashtra Forest Department said that they “would press for the best mitigation measures” possible. Litigant Ashok Kumar, vice-chairman, WTI, refused to comment “at this stage” and reposed full faith in the court.
“We certainly need better roads but we cannot compromise the biodiversity,” said Milind Pariwakam, a wildlife biologist who has been following the case since 2009. “Money should never come in the way of preserving our natural heritage. Besides, this is a one-time investment that will secure these forests for posterity.”
The larger central Indian forest landscape connects Ranthambhore (Rajasthan) to Sunabeda (Odisha), Bandhavgarh (Madhya Pradesh) to Khammam (Andhra Pradesh), and Melghat (Maharashtra) to Palamu (Jharkhand). A vast repository of biodiversity for future generations, this intricate network of forests is being dug up by miners and sliced up by roads and railways.
Growth is necessary, perhaps inevitable. But is India willing to safeguard its few remaining forests? The National Highway 6 may just show us which way the government intends to go.

Security Begins at Home

Instead of demanding water from the hinterland, mega cities like Delhi should first ensure equitable distribution. With ownership, responsibility and innovation will follow.

Tehelka, 23 June, 2012

INDIA’S BIGGEST lies hide behind its per capita figures. Our average income is $1,219 (approximately 68,300) and we are ranked 142nd in the world. But with 55 billionaires, we also stand fourth in the list of the countries boasting the world’s richest individuals. Between these two true figures, two-thirds of us live on less than half a dollar a day and nearly half our children are malnourished.
The per capita ‘lies’ help fight our cases at various development or earth summits where we press ‘our’ growth prerogative and bandy ‘our’ low carbon footprint. But the deception is fast catching up with us at home. While governments may soon have to grapple with the political cost of institutionalising inequality, the environmental, and thereby human, cost of it is already being borne by us.
The same pattern is unfolding with this summer’s water crisis in the capital city, the war of words and the intervention of the Prime Minister’s Office. A crowded mega city requires plenty of water. The World Health Organisation (WHO) quantifies per capita availability of 100-200 litres as optimal. The National Commission on Urbanisation recommended per capita supply of 90-100 litres. The Tenth Plan revised the Ninth Plan’s per capita benchmark of 125 litres to 150 litres for big cities.
Delhi supplies around 3,200 million litres of water per day. Almost 40 percent of this is lost along a 9,000 km network of leaky pipes. Thus, for the city’s 16 million people, daily per capita availability of water works out to be 120 litres. But Delhi also needs water for non-domestic use. A recent ASSOCHAM study estimated that one-third of the city’s per capita consumption went to the commercial sector and hotels. So the actual per capita availability of water for domestic use is barely 80 litres, well below the WHO’s optimal benchmark.
So how come residents in the upmarket pockets use drinking water to wash their cars? How come farmhouse owners in Mehrauli fill up their swimming pools and flood their lawns? Because the per capita supply to the New Delhi, Karol Bagh and Cantonment areas crosses the 400-litre mark. Because farmhouses are allowed to illegally draw rapidly sinking groundwater.
As a result, per capita availability of water is as low as 15 litres a day in Delhi’s many slum clusters. Even otherwise, the poor’s entitlement is nowhere close to adequate. The Delhi government does not charge for 6,000 litres per family per month. For a family of six, this breaks down to less than 35 litres per person per day if the taps do not run dry.
On paper, the government aspires to provide 265 litres of water to every urban citizen daily. For Delhi, that amounts to 4,200 million litres a day. Factoring in the distribution loss, the present deficit is of 2,300 million litres. Even if Delhi acquires an additional 300 million litres from Haryana and another 1,050 million litres from the Renuka dam, if and when it is cleared at great environmental and human cost in Himachal Pradesh, the city will still stare at a daily deficit of nearly 1,000 million litres.
But does Delhi really need to aspire for a daily per capita supply of 265 litres when an average Londoner gets to use only 170 litres? Going by the upper limit of WHO’s optimal benchmark of 200 litres, Delhi’s 16 million people do not require more than the 3,200 million litres that Delhi already claims to be supplying. Fixing leaky pipelines is a far more honourable option than begging or bullying one’s neighbours.
But even a zero-water deficit Delhi does not mean the less privileged will enjoy the basic minimum supply. To make at least 100 litres of free water available to each citizen, the authorities will have to curb wastage and misuse.
If consumption over 100 litres per person is charged incrementally, and wastage of drinking water in gardening or construction activities is discouraged, there should be adequate water available for everybody; at least, for now.





DELHI’S PRESENT population of 16 million is likely to go up to 24 million in the next 10 years. The capital already depends on Uttarakhand and Haryana for water and the states will not be in a position to increase, even sustain, the supply. For a water-secure future, the mega city must look for solutions within its boundaries and control.
Comparatively less vertical than other mega cities, Delhi has a better opportunity to harvest rainwater. It gets adequate rainfall and, if harvested in an area of 200 sq m, can yield 7,200 litres, equivalent to an individual’s optimal annual requirement. But though the city has four agencies for promoting rainwater harvesting, it is not yet compulsory.
Delhi’s daily sewage load is exactly the amount of water supplied every day: 3,200 million litres. It is a mega hazard that can be turned into an opportunity. However revolting the idea may be, 5 percent of the world’s drinking water already comes from purified sewage.
Once dependent on Malaysia for water, Singapore now reclaims 3,800 million litres of drinking-quality water from sewage daily. The US, China, Vietnam and Egypt are the other forerunners in the field. The cost, however, is steep.
While Delhi does not really need to drink purified sewage in the foreseeable future, many of its residents anyway end up drinking water laced with excreta because only 1,500 million litres of the capital’s sewage undergoes treatment and the rest enters the water systems directly. The government has pumped in Rs 1,300 crore after two years’ delay but even this added capacity will cover treatment of only 60 percent of the city’s total sewage. The reclaimed water, however, may not be of even bathing quality.
Today, a majority of Delhi’s 792 water bodies have either fallen victim to land sharks, been choked with garbage, or turned into stinky drains. If restored, these traditional water systems can recharge the city’s depleted aquifers. The two most critical stretches for Delhi’s groundwater security, the Yamuna floodplains and the Ridge, have been encroached and severely abused. This is tragic in a city with such a rich history of sustainable use of water. The Tomar Rajputs began the long tradition of water harvesting in Lal Kot near Mehrauli on the Aravali hills. Today, their legacy of Suraj Kund and the Badhkal lake has been laid waste.
Shamsuddin Iltutmish built the Hauz-e-Shamsi by diverting water from natural streams to a depression and the lake somehow survives amidst piles of garbage in Mehrauli. But the vast and shallow lake around which the Tughlaqabad and the Adilabad forts were built finally disappeared when the Indian Army reclaimed the land. Alauddin Khilji diverted streams to fill the Hauz Khas and launched an afforestation drive on the Ridge. Shahjahan built an intricate network of canals for the walled city. His daughter Jahanara’s Chandni Chowk had a sparkling canal, Faiz Nahar, running till the Fatehpuri mosque. Today, it is the congested main road to the market.
Without looking within, without reviving the Yamuna, recharging ground water through traditional water systems, harvesting rainwater, reinforcing its faulty and ageing pipelines and treating the sewage before it spoils the river and the aquifer, the capital can never be water-sufficient. And this tall order requires the involvement of every citizen whose biggest incentive will be to create and own the resource most critical for life, instead of turning the tap and complaining.
Kolkata and Mumbai may face different water challenges — of arsenic contamination and salinity, respectively — but every mega city has a lesson to learn from New Delhi’s crisis. Equitability is the first step towards water security.

Death of a Journalist

Firstpost, 22 June, 2012

I did not know Tarun Sehrawat. The news of his death due to cerebral malaria, jaundice and typhoid did not shock me. Having seen quite a few untimely deaths in the profession and the armed forces routinely lose men to malaria, I felt sad for the young man and moved on.

What surprised me was the spectrum of opinion in the media coverage that followed. I read snide comments on the bravado of the deceased, some careful finger-pointing at his employers, and a well-meaning sermon to rein in “over-driven” reporters. I was not sure if I wanted to join the lopsided debate. But here I am.

'Ultimately, we are the choices we make'

A necessary disclaimer here: I write for Tehelka. The reader is free to dig for agendas in what I am going to say. But it needs to be said.

I understand the indignation of the been-there-done-it-so-much-better conflict reporters, anger of Sehrawat’s friends, angst that insider knowledge of an organisation fuels, and the anguish of armchair experts. These emotions do not require discussion or rebuttal. But the question of ethics, of risk weighed against result, and therefore the very essence of journalism, certainly does.

Is journalism a dangerous profession?

If one believes in the Orwellian benchmark – that journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed (not to be confused with a few good editors’ refusal to carry bad copy) – the risk is very real. If one does not, and pursues what Orwell called public relations, the only risk is of getting caught with disproportionate assets. But few journalists make successful public relation officers, fewer make good journalists.

I am not suggesting that the reportage we read or watch from war zones and conflict areas are necessarily great pieces of journalism reported at great risk. Many are snatches of an orchestrated drama. The state routinely hires reporters who readily oblige. The same is true of the insurgents who equally need publicity and take reporters on guided tours. Both trust the media to suitably dress up these “exclusives” to establish credibility.

But the rare ground report of a war crime, of a genocide or violation of rights or corruption or simply a big lie are invariably gathered at great risk, often to life. You can possibly train the reporter how to dodge a confrontation or avoid getting caught in a crossfire. But how do you train a reporter to pry a secret defended by a private or state militia on their own turf without risking life? Even the Bollywood of the 80s would have found such an idea silly.

Forget war or conflict zones. Try getting a ground report from an illegal quarry barely half a day’s drive from the capital. You mobile network will hold and you can keep in touch with the cops, the civil administration and your editors throughout. But in case of trouble, it won’t really matter because none of them can enter those quarries either, not without getting shot at or stoned. So what training should we provide reporters for uncovering illegal mining – other than discouraging any attempt at ground reportage of such issues?

Sehrawat fell victim to the water he drank and the mosquitoes he probably was not prepared for. Malaria prophylaxis, though not foolproof, usually works. Typhoid and hepatitis vaccines are recommended for everyone, even those in mega-cities. But hepatitis vaccines need to be administered over months. Typhoid and malaria preventives require days to take effect. So, in the best case scenario, if reporters are assigned to jaundice-malaria-typhoid zones, they require at least a week to medically prepare themselves. That is a terribly long time in a deadline-driven job. If you are following a live lead, just a week’s lag can kill your story.

I do not know if Sehrawat’s assignment could have waited, or if he or his editors even considered these health issues. But, ultimately, we are the choices we make. Three years ago, lowly city reporters were covering the swine flu outbreak in Delhi without any preventive vaccine because there was none. At least two I know were taken seriously ill. Nobody complained. It was an occupational hazard.

In my limited association with Tehelka, I have not noticed much that validates the organisation’s reputation for pushing its staff into unsafe territory. Then again, I may not have been looking at all. Maybe 72 months in The Indian Express, where even junior desk hands privately reported falling sperm count due to stress, set my bar a little high. If you want it easy, we were told, you go to Hindustan Times. Eventually, many of my former colleagues did.

Today, my years and my ‘independent’ tag discourage editors from advising me on personal safety. But even as a rookie with The Sunday Observer, I had no training to fall back on when I found myself in a small group of journalists who came under heavy brickbatting from every possible rooftop outside a polling booth in Sambhal (Uttar Pradesh) where Mulayam Singh was taking on his then arch rival DP Yadav in 1998. Years later, travelling far and deep inside forests across India, I frequently remained inaccessible for days to my bosses in The Indian Express, who never tried to stay in touch, probably because they could offer little to guide me along those terrains.

And why Abujhmarh, go to friendly Rajasthan, to one of those remote forest hamlets where village buffalos lounge in the only waterhole around. What training can help you decide, five minutes into conversation, if you should accept tea made from that putrid emulsion? Even while lugging along mineral water cartons, certain reporters do drink that tea, albeit gingerly, when they need to hang around long enough to strike a rapport and ferret out the information. It is a choice no safety guideline can, or should, take away.

Thousands of journalists, young and seasoned, take such calls, small and big, everyday across the world. The number of those who err on the side of caution is rapidly swelling. But in an increasingly absurd time, the profession survives by dint of those few who still make, consciously or not, those apparently insane choices. Not all of them get lucky.

Unlike Tehelka, I have no reason to fill up pages mourning Sehrawat whose death, to me, is no more than the loss of potential. Unlike those who have rushed to speak for him, I have no reason to suspect that Sehrawat did not know what he was doing when he set out to Abujhmarh. It is also unnecessary to judge if he died a martyr or a victim, what with the line separating the two anyway getting ever so thin.

If he was simply being a journalist, his death is incidental. Like all our deaths, after ample or no precaution, should be.

Try Breaching Hooda’s Fortress

The Haryana government is not only stalling a CBI probe into forestry scams but also refusing to let the persecuted whistleblower leave the state on a Central deputation

Tehelka, 15 June, 2012


MANY READERS of TEHELKA are familiar with the story of IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi. The whistleblower has been persecuted by the Haryana government since 2007 for exposing corruption and violation of laws involving Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s office, several ministers and a host of IFS and IAS officials.
Last year, the story should have ended on a happy note for Chaturvedi and his cause. After four years of stiff resistance from Haryana, two Presidential interventions and a Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) inquiry, the illegal suspension order and chargesheet slapped on him were finally revoked in January 2011. The whistleblower’s allegations were subsequently examined by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), which recommended a CBI investigation in December 2011 into multi-crore forest scams and violations of forest and wildlife laws in December 2011.
Six months later, the story drags on. The state has successfully stonewalled the CBI probe so far. Worse, the Hooda government has now for over a month blocked Chaturvedi from leaving Haryana on a Central deputation. Repeated reminders, including telegrams, from New Delhi have failed to generate any response from the state.
Chaturvedi has led an insecure life in Haryana ever since he stood up against the state machinery. After he got rid of the illegal chargesheet last January, the officer was desperate to leave the state on a Central deputation. But few ministries were ready to make room for a whistleblower.
Between November 2011 and February 2012, Chaturvedi’s name figured in two separate panels for the Departments of Elementary Education and Industry. The Ministry of Human Resources Development dropped the entire panel on 15 December; the Ministry of Commerce and Industry did the same on 6 February.
According to sources, Chaturvedi was then advised by his colleagues in the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) to first check with the minister concerned about his acceptability lest sending his name again resulted in the cancellation of the entire panel.
Finally, Chaturvedi got his break last month in the Ministry of Health. On 3 May, the DOPT wrote to the MOEF to immediately relieve Chaturvedi so that he could assume charge as deputy secretary at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
On 7 May, the MOEF sent a telegram to Haryana Chief Secretary PK Chaudhery to release the officer. On 21 May, the ministry sent a reminder but the state maintained its silence.
On 31 May, Union Health Secretary PK Pradhan wrote to Chaudhery, pointing out that “Chaturvedi has not joined as he has not been relieved by Haryana”. Explaining the urgency of the situation, Pradhan urged Chaudhery to allow the officer to take up the new assignment.
Chaudhery, it is learnt, has tried to convince the chief minister several times that there was no technical ground to hold the officer back, but apparently, Hooda has been adamant. The chief minister, say sources in the CMO, is determined to go any length to “teach the officer a lesson”. While both Hooda and Chaudhery refused to respond despite repeated attempts, Haryana Forest Minister Ajay Singh Yadav told TEHELKA that “pending departmental inquiries” are the reason for not relieving Chaturvedi. So why hasn’t the state rejected the relieving request outright? “The officers should know about all this,” Yadav ducked the query.
But Manik B Sonawane, financial commissioner and principal secretary (forests and wildlife), claimed that the file was with the competent authority. “I can comment on this only when the file reaches me,” he says. No, he would not name the competent authority. Clearly, the state has no ground to reject the relieving request and has decided to delay the file till Chaturvedi’s selection expires and the officer is barred from selection in the future.

IT IS obvious why the Hooda government is ready to go any length to punish Chaturvedi. When his name was cleared by Presidential intervention last January, the whistleblower did not relent. Instead, he wrote to the MOEF in March 2011, seeking a CBI probe into the irregularities he had been pointing out all along. His complaints were referred to the CVC and the CBI. In December, the Hooda regime was jolted by the CVC recommendation of a CBI probe. 

Hooda’s clout made the green ministry dither on the CVC recommendation for two months. In February, instead of asking the state to hand over the cases to the CBI, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan merely sought the state’s opinion on the CVC recommendation. When no reply was received, the MOEF asked the state on 1 March to file FIRs and entrust the matter to the CBI.Though silent, the Hooda government was not sitting idle. On 16 February, the DOPT sent a confidential note to the PMO, claiming that the Centre had no jurisdiction to intervene in violations of Central Acts in states or to protect whistleblowers even if they belong to the All India Services. On 6 March, Forest Minister Yadav produced this note in the Haryana Assembly to dismiss the MOEF inquiry as “ultra-vires” (beyond its power).Curiously, Yadav obtained the note from MM Joshi, a serving IFS officer in Haryana and a prime accused in the scams and violations, who filed an RTI application on 24 February, specifically seeking a copy of the confidential note. The DOPT took just three working days to hand Joshi the note, a third-party information, without inviting objections from Chaturvedi, which is mandatory under Section 11(1) of the RTI Act. Legal experts maintained that, prima facie, the note would not stand legal scrutiny (DOPT comes to Hooda’s rescue, 24 March, TEHELKA).After flaunting the dubious note in the Assembly, Haryana government used it in its late reply to MOEF on 7 March. The state also argued that the Central Empowered Committee (CEC) of the Supreme Court considered and laid the two cases in question to rest while disciplinary proceedings were initiated against those found guilty in the third case.On 14 March, the CVC sought an update on its recommendations from the MOEF, which in its reply dated 23 March, rejected the claims of the state, noting that “the action of the government was in the manner of regularising the violation, ex-post”. With even the PMO stepping in on 3 May to ask the MOEF for details of the action taken on its inquiry and the green ministry waiting for directions from the CVC before initiating further action, it is unlikely that the Haryana government will be able to stall the CBI probe for too long.So, a desperate state trained its guns on the whistleblower again, refusing to let him escape its jurisdiction. With the CBI investigation imminent, the Hooda government, it seems, has decided to make an example of Chaturvedi to deter future whistleblowers.If this young IFS officer’s ordeal falls off the public radar at this crucial juncture, those popular anti-corruption slogans on our crowded streets will ring shamefully hollow.

Tigers may soon feel the tremors

To understand quakes triggered by reservoirs, the government plans to drill deep into the last wilderness of the north Western Ghats

Tehelka, 8 June, 2012

THE HUMAN mind is brilliant, and enterprising. First we build dams and drown vast stretches of wilderness under reservoirs. But such artificial loads of water cause frequent, at times deadly, tremors. So next, we want to understand the quake dynamics by digging a few kilometres into the earth, threatening the remaining forests in the vicinity.
Since the impoundment of the Shivajisagar reservoir in 1962, Maharashtra’s Koyna region has suffered thousands of earthquakes. Typical examples of Reservoir Triggered Seismicity (RTS), more than 225 quakes of 4-6.3 magnitude on the Richter scale have been recorded in a pocket of 600 (20x30) sq km in the past 50 years. What made the RTS more pronounced here was the creation of a second reservoir at Warna, about 20 km from Koyna, in 1993.
For scientists, this was a great opportunity to understand quakes. In March 2011, Minister for Earth Sciences Ashwani Kumar said, “Efforts are underway to build a new scientific initiative, especially to understand the seismic activity of Koyna region in detail by drilling deep boreholes… an MoU has been signed on 7 January 2011 with the German Research Centre for Geosciences on behalf of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Programme (ICDP) for an initial period of five years.”
The same month, 70 experts — 26 of them from abroad — attended a workshop at National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) on ‘Deep Scientific Drilling to Study Reservoir Triggered Earthquakes at Koyna’ to chalk out a project for studying the physical, geological and chemical processes and properties of this quake zone in real time. Funded by the Centre, the project involved drilling a 7-km deep borehole and the cost was pegged between Rs 200-Rs 400 crore.

A few proposed drilling sites are inside Chandoli National Park, which, along with Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary, became the Sahyadri Tiger Reserve in 2007. Drilling bores to the depth of 1,000-10,000 metres will require heavy machinery. Road construction and vehicular movement apart, this will necessitate supply of water and electricity to the core of the tiger reserve through pipelines and power pylons. Realistically, one would expect the habitat to be scarred by onsite constructions and dumping of drilling mud.
Since initial results are not expected before a decade, the damage on the only tiger reserve in the north Western Ghats will be sustained and irreversible. Aggressive chemicals are often used to clean materials brought up in drilling mud. If contaminated mud is dumped in open pits, it will pollute the fragile ecology. If dumping pits are dug up to bury the sludge, it will cause further destruction to this tiger habitat.
This April, when N Purnachandra Rao, project leader and NGRI’s senior principal scientist, sought permission from the state Forest Department for site reconnaissance, he referred to the forest as Chandoli National Park instead of Sahyadri Tiger Reserve. The ambiguity stuck in the permission granted by SWH Naqvi, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), Maharashtra, to a 12-member team of scientists led by NGRI chief scientist Prakash Khare.
However, Naqvi forwarded the letter of permission to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the latter, it is learnt, has referred the project to the National Board for Wildlife earlier this week. “My permission was purely for reconnaissance purpose and it did not allow any scientific experiment, digging or removal of stones. If they (NGRI) seek permission for drilling, we will refer it to NTCA and NBWL,” says Naqvi.
Meanwhile, the NGRI team conducted a survey from 29-31 May. Rao explains that his teams will continue to examine different sites for feasibility. “It will take another two years before we pinpoint the most suitable site and start drilling. We are trying to avoid the tiger reserve. But if we need to drill there, we will seek all the necessary permissions,” assures Rao.
The Sahyadri tigers may just run out of luck.

Final Countdown

Water crisis has long ceased to be about green cause; it’s about survival

The Economic Times, 8 June, 2012

WHILE we look to Copenhagen and Cancun and Durban for the world powers to save the planet from global warming, time is, quite literally, slipping beneath our feet. If the United Nations’ World Water Development Report 2012 is anything to go by, “India faces an unprecedented crisis in the next two decades” which “threatens the country’s food and water security”. It is the biggest crisis of our lifetime.

Water, though, is everywhere. Nearly 70% of the earth is covered by oceans and much of its land in permanent ice. But only 3% of it is freshwater, no more than a few drops that we can drink. Groundwater is the largest volume of the unfrozen freshwater but accounts for just 1% of earth’s total water. It is a scarce, invisible resource, always taken for granted.

In an age obsessed with greenhouse gases, water emerges as the biggest victim of human growth. In the two and half centuries since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide formulations in the atmosphere have gone up by approximately 36%, methane by 150%, and nitrous oxide by 16%. In the 20th century alone, human population increased by 300% and the use of water by 700%.

But this is not about numbers.

++

When I grew up in Calcutta, half the city bathed in its numerous ponds and the Ganga. My family belonged to the other half that looked down on public bathing as subaltern. Never allowed to take the plunge despite living by an expansive pond, I soon stopped longing for the adventure.

More than two decades later, when Calcutta has lost most of its water bodies to a real estate boom, the significance of those bathing ponds dawned on me. Even today, few Asian cities have waste water treatment plants. As a result, huge quantities of wastewater keep polluting our freshwater systems. Ponds are a low-cost, natural wastewater reuse and treatment system that also supports local fishermen.

Public bathing in ponds may not appear a pleasant or even practical urban solution in 2012, but the sheer presence of these water bodies is absolutely vital for replenishing the groundwater stock, particularly in cities where impervious surfaces such as paved streets, parking lots and roofs restrict rainwater percolation.

But this is not about an urban crisis.

++

Across India, the mean rate of drop in the water table is one metre in every three years. In a list of six hot spots identified by the United Nation’s World Water Development Report 2012, India comes first. But merely turning off bathroom taps may not save the day.

Today, 72% of water use is for agriculture and another 22% for industry, leaving out only 6% to meet the domestic demand. Since Independence, subsequent governments have offered subsidised electricity to farmers for pumping out groundwater. During 1970–94, groundwater-irrigated lands in India have increased by 105%.

As a result, the UN report notes, “aquifer depletion and inefficient water use are now endemic” in India. The International Water Management Institute describes this as “the anarchy of uncontrolled groundwater exploitation”. By 2020, severe groundwater shortage will hit several Indian states (Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana) and cities (Delhi and Mumbai). By 2025, many parts of India could simply run out of groundwater.

But the crisis is not India’s alone.

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Globally, 1.7 billion people lack access to safe water and more than 3 million people die from water-borne diseases each year in developing countries. About 245,000 sq km of marine ecosystems feature ‘dead zones’ caused by the discharge of untreated wastewater, which affects fisheries, livelihoods and the food chain. The poor are the first and worst victims.

The major water pollutants produced by us include microbial pathogens, nutrients, pesticides, oxygen-consuming substances, heavy metals, and persistent organic matter that enter water systems through agricultural run-off, domestic and industrial effluents, wastewater discharge, mine and landfill leachate and so on.

Approximately 2 million tonnes of human waste are released into rivers and streams every year. Water contaminated by microbes is the biggest single cause of human death. In the US, industries produce more than 36 billion kg of hazardous organic chemical-based pollutants every year. In India, it took a Supreme Court order to ban the use of endosulfan after decades of abuse.

Studies indicate that a population over 500 million in 569 749 sq km of the Ganga-Meghna-Brahmaputra plain may be at risk from arsenic contamination. Also, 17 states in India are endemic for fluorosis with an estimated 62 million people already affected.

Global warming may or may not end the world in the near future, but the water catastrophe is already upon us.

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The UN World Water Development Report 2009 noted that impacts of climate change “are likely to be small (and possibly negligible) compared with the stresses placed on groundwater systems by current socio-economic drivers”. The same UN declared 2005–15 as the International Decade for Action (Water for Life) “to enhance international cooperation in addressing the exploitation and degradation of water resources”.

Yet, there is little effort to move towards binding regulations that will protect trans-boundary freshwater systems. At home, there is no policy shift to treat groundwater as a community resource, instead of an individual asset, or to discourage subsidies for inefficient harvesting.

From Kolkata, I shifted to Delhi and watched the capital surrender its water bodies that nurtured champion swimmers like Khajan Singh, one by one. By 2025, Delhi’s demand for groundwater will touch 0.57 billion cubic metres (BCM).  At present, only 0.28 BCM is available annually and the rate of replenishment is 170% in the negative.

This has long ceased to be about a green cause, it’s about survival. Now is our very last chance. 

The Thing About Trendy Green

Open, 2 June, 2012

10 popular panaceas that promise to revive our ecologically bankrupt planet. But can they ever deliver?

1. AFFORESTATION

Like most of us, I grew up learning about the virtues of planting trees. Our home in Calcutta had a modest garden and plants flowered round the year. In senior school, I took home free saplings distributed as part of the Green Calcutta mission. By the time I was in college, afforestation was as much a cause as gender equality or child rights.

A couple of decades later, facts tell a scary story. Since 1987, India has added 50,000 sq km to its forest cover. Given the growing pressure on land and other natural resources for economic growth, that sounds like a miracle of an achievement until we hit the fine print.

The rise in forest cover is attributed to successful afforestation drives, which means plantation of fast-growing, usually commercial species such as teak, rubber, coffee or eucalyptus. On paper, such plantations have more than compensated for the loss of forests in the past 25 years. But monoculture plantations (row upon row of the same species) do not support biodiversity, have little or no ecological value, and are no substitute for natural forests.

So it has been a double whammy on the ground. Target-oriented government policies make forest staff clear degraded natural forests, where root stocks would rebound given protection, to plant saplings. Over time, these artificial monocultures keep adding to the green cover and hide the rapid, alarming loss of natural forests.

Researchers Jean- Philippe Puyravaud and Priya Davidar of Pondicherry University, and William Laurance from James Cook University, have estimated that plantations in India are expanding by 6,000-18,000 sq km a year. The native forests, on the other hand, are declining rapidly, at a rate higher than that of either Brazil or Malaysia.

In the past two years, for the gain of 1,000-odd sq km of green cover through plantation in Punjab, 670 sq km of ancient forest was lost in Andaman and Nicobar and another 18,000 sq km in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

It is one thing to plant trees by the roadside or in gardens, quite another to try greening the world with plantations. As long as governments continue with such myopic afforestation drives, the country’s best natural forests will keep silently disappearing without disturbing our blind estimates of green cover.

2. CARBON OFFSET

By the time I could afford a small car, the world was worrying about carbon offsetting. My moral ground slipped when we bought a second car. Guilt finally caught up with me in 2007 when I watched the Vatican become the “first carbon-neutral sovereign state”. Before I could bring myself to buy some credit, the papal state was planning to sue the Hungarian company KlimaFa that had promised to plant thousands of trees along the Tisza river to suck up carbon. It was already 2010 and not a single sapling had been planted.

But would it really have helped even if KlimaFa planted those promised trees? Most trees are vulnerable to harvesting. They get uprooted in squalls and burn in forest fires. So, in the long run, it makes little sense to plant trees to offset carbon dioxide that can stay in the atmosphere for centuries before getting dissolved in the ocean. Yet, trees fetch carbon promoters millions of dollars because of their symbolic appeal.

London-based New Energy Finance estimates the global carbon market to scale the $100 billion mark by the year-end. That is a lot of money in a market that is completely unregulated and open to abuse. In the name of carbon offset, green fraudsters are busy ripping off emotional buyers across the globe, from Panama to Papua New Guinea where the natives were made to surrender their carbon rights for what they appropriately call “sky money”. Already, a number of countries, Australia among them, have cracked down on unscrupulous carbon marketing.

A carbon customer buys an unverifiable promise that nobody may keep or cause further damage to the planet trying to keep. Between 2006 and 2009, at least 550 windmills were set up by evicting thousands of tribals from their ancestral land in Maharashtra’s Dhule and Nandurbar districts. After felling more than 1,000 trees, carbon credits were sold to foreign companies at $8 a tonne, causing global outrage. Without a single enforceable standard of credibility, the global carbon industry’s own future remains as shaky as the earth’s.

3. ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

We agreed long ago that burning coal was bad for the planet. Ditto for fossil fuels. Hydro-electricity was the preferred green choice till we realised how it kills our rivers. But since all of us have long become energy-guzzling monsters, something had to give. While the world grappled with exorbitant alternatives, it suddenly became green-versus-green. So windmills are blamed for avian mortality, solar power for ruining deserts, biomass for air pollution and even the geothermal promise apparently packs toxic discharges.

Remember how the Indian media fell in love with oilseed plant jatropha about a decade ago? Ignoring a few critics who felt it could pose a threat to our food security, the government set a plantation target of 13 million hectare by 2013. The programme has now been put on hold after an official study by The Energy Research Institute (TERI) in 2010 declared jatropha financially unviable.

While the jury is still out on the affordability of alternative energy even if mass demand makes the unit cost less intimidating, the knee-jerk, populist attempts to move towards renewable fuel has created another market open to rampant abuse.

After raising more than $1 billion from investors and securing a $500 million federal loan guarantee to build a state-of-the-art robotic factory, Silicon Valley solar panel maker Solyndra declared bankruptcy in 2011, blaming it on “a global oversupply of solar panels” and shutting its doors on a 1,100-strong workforce.

In 2007, the US declared that 36 billion gallons of ethanol would be used in gasoline by 2022. Companies that could not meet their target bought credits from renewable fuel producers. Starting 2009, Maryland-based firm Clean Green Fuel sold credits for 21 million gallons of biodiesel. The company maintained it collected waste vegetable oil from 2,700 local restaurants and converted it into fuel, till the government found out in 2011 that Clean Green Fuel had no facilities to collect or convert anything and dragged it to court. But the owner had already made $9.1 million in cash. And he ran a fleet of more than two dozen luxury sports cars. Talk of reducing the carbon footprint.

4. ECO-TOURISM

I have not been to the Galápagos. This cluster of volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean and their unique native species inspired Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural selection. Now chances are I never will. Around 40,000 tourists visited this treasure trove of nature in 1990. The number of visitors grew to 145,000 in 2006. But of the $418 million generated by tourism annually, only $63 million entered the local economy. Less than 40 per cent of the boats operating in the Galápagos were locally owned.

Then, the Darwin Foundation and UNESCO raised an alarm. In 2008, things began to move slowly with restrictions on tourist numbers and a resurgence of the local economy. This year, the Galápagos Park service stopped boats from using the same landing site more than twice a month.

The Galápagos example is true of most eco-destinations around the world. At home, once little-known forests, beaches and hill stations are now bursting with tourists and the garbage they leave behind. The irony, in fact, lies in the very promise that makes eco-destinations popular.

True, like any industry, tourism survives on growth. But growth kills the very USP of eco-tourism. If an operator promotes a virgin beach or a pristine forest for what it is and offers the concessions that mass tourism demands, the destinations cannot remain virgin or pristine for long.

The other promise of eco-tourism, that it will take care of local communities and conservation, is sheer betrayal. To generate enough revenues to fulfil the green promise, big eco-tourism players must bring large volumes of low-quality business to the ultimate detriment of conservation and (local) community.

All that could change if eco-tourism were restricted to local communities. If external players did not get to take away the bulk of profits, a much smaller business could support each eco-destination. But the service industry needs skill sets usually absent in local communities. So the involvement of big business is inevitable, and the decimation of eco-destinations implicit in that inevitability.

5. COEXISTENCE

Legend has it that Indians have, down the ages, lived in harmony with nature, which includes wild animals that can kill or cause damage. Never mind the heroics of Lord Krishna dancing atop a deadly snake that he eventually killed; or Sita’s fetish for golden deer pelt that triggered an epic transoceanic battle. Our gods and goddesses moved around on animals and birds, but then Mahishasura, the demon, also assumed the buffalo form and there is no clarity on how the tiger pelts used by Lord Shiva and by the meekest of our rishis were sourced.

The point is simple. Unlike the paranoid West, the oriental approach to nature and wildlife was certainly tolerant. But while Indians hardly panicked at the presence of potential dangerous wildlife, they never shied away from intervening when the danger was real.

That was then. Now, we have an overpopulated, fast urbanising country where man-animal conflict is steadily on the rise due to two alarming trends. One, vast tracts of forests, and with it their wildlife, are disappearing. Two, wildlife is flourishing in certain protected, designated or not, forest pockets.

The urban elite coasting on the benefits of growth does have green concerns. It is never easy to fight the state and big businesses. So they want the rural poor to look after the wilderness. The rural poor never needed any prodding. But now the villager has a problem: in certain pockets protected wildlife populations have multiplied manifold. He is now being asked to ‘co-exist’ and sacrifice livelihood, and often life, in the name of traditional Indian tolerance.

Even if the fashionable urban greens continue their push to save wildlife by turning the rural poor into casualties of conservation, do the animals stand a chance? The right to survive is sacrosanct, and pitting the wildlife and the poor against each other can yield only one winner. But then, it is far easier to stand on the sidelines and cheer (or preach) than to share the responsibility and cost of conservation.

6. ORGANIC FARMING

Half a century ago, agricultural practices worldwide were organic. Life expectancy has grown by a couple of decades since. Miraculous, given that the food I, and most others I know, can afford has become a cocktail of pesticides and insecticides.

Organic food may not prolong lifespans but surely it secures the planet’s future. Then again, does it really? A litre of organic milk requires 80 per cent more land than conventional milk to produce, has 20 per cent greater global warming potential, releases 60 per cent more nutrients to water sources, and contributes 70 per cent more to acid rain. That is what a study by UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) claims. What is more, organically-reared cattle emit double the amount of methane compared to conventionally reared ones.

An organic farmer needs to plough two-and-a-half times the land to match the potato yield of a conventional farmer. Likewise, organic yield is 75 per cent of conventional tomato crops but it consumes twice the energy in heated greenhouses and 25 per cent more water. Defra also estimates that nutrient pollution of organic wheat and tomato is three times higher than conventional varieties.

The carbon cost apart, the market price of organic food is too steep to justify in a world still fighting hunger. In poorer countries, organic farming is indeed the default option still but there is just not enough food to support the market. In Africa, where the problem is most pronounced due to green groups’ insistence on traditional farming methods, forced subsistence and constant expansion of low-yield farming are causing deforestation, soil erosion and habitat loss. In sum, serious environmental damage.

7. VEGETARIANISM

The poor who cannot afford animal protein would laugh at the suggestion that a vegetarian’s food footprint can actually overshadow a meat eater’s. But the poor have no choice but to live light, and poor kitchens, particularly in villages, obviously make the most of the backyard garden.

But new-age vegetarianism is no compulsion of the poor; it is a fad of the rich. Vegetarians who fly in exotic greens and fruits from around the world often leave a larger footprint than those who consume local meat or poultry in moderation. A 2010 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report nailed the charade by pointing out that highly processed vegetarian meat-substitutes or foods made of imported soya might use more arable land and resources than their meat or dairy equivalents.

Besides, soya and tofu, the ultimate meat-substitute, contain a high-level of the anti-nutrient phytic acid, which blocks the absorption of minerals such as magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc. It also contains phytoestrogens that can cause infertility. While a study at Harvard Public School of Health in 2008 found that soya milk reduced sperm counts in men by 50 per cent, the Swiss Health Service estimated in 1992 that women consuming two cups of soya milk a day were ingesting the estrogenic equivalent of one birth control pill. This explains why babies fed soya-based formula have 13,000 to 22,000 times more estrogen compounds in their blood compared to those fed milk-based formula.

Those who shun meat in favour of fish are not helping the planet either. Half the fish consumed globally is produced by aquaculture while the rest is procured by hunting (fishing) in the wild. Aquaculture often destroys mangroves and pollutes estuaries through effluent discharge from shrimp farms. Personally, I feel guilty every time I order salmon. It is one of the predator species, meaning I end up wasting resources worth 1 kg of other fish that goes into producing just 200 gm of salmon on my plate. But then, I have never had a kiwano melon.

8. ACTIVISM

No, we don’t really mind those ads: voluptuous celebrities sporting leopard spots or tiger stripes or in cages, dressing up as giant condoms to promote animal birth control, or pregnant women being compared to fattened cows to protest farmed meat. In fact, some of us secretly loved the idea (and the excuse: Vegans make better lovers) when volunteers publicly made out on the streets of Nashville in US.

But how much do these outlandish campaigns cost? Peta draws annual donation worth over $30 million. In 2010, only 2 per cent of it was spent on funding research and 17 per cent on fundraising. In 2011, research grants went up to $10 million but were dwarfed by the $17.5 million bill incurred for campaign and outreach. Greenpeace earned over $27 million in 2010 from donations, investment returns and grants of which $11 million was spent on campaigns.

And what do these campaigns seek to achieve? Last year, relaunching its ‘Paradise Forests’ campaign to convince toymaker Mattel to stop sourcing paper for their packaging from Asia Pulp and Paper, which was clearing valuable rainforests, Greenpeace announced the breakup of Ken and Barbie at Mattel headquarters in Los Angeles, with a banner featuring Ken announcing, “Barbie, it’s over, I don’t date girls that are into forest destruction.”

If that was novel, Greenpeace also encouraged Facebook followers to make scripted calls to tuna companies, many of which included accusations of “rape”, “thievery”, “piracy” and other charges. Peta’s online campaign features games against Mario, the overalls wearing plumber of Nintendo, because he wears fur in the game Super Mario 3D Land. It also ran a Thanksgiving campaign asking children, “You wouldn’t eat your dog, why turkey?” and “How would children feel if Fido and Fluffy were stuffed and roasted?”

Bet your donations, turkey is still Thanksgiving staple and Fido and Fluffy still have unprotected sex. It is another matter that farmers keep eliminating thousands of wildlife in retaliatory killings in Asia and Africa because there is never enough money to compensate for crop and other damage.

9. EARTH HOUR

Six years ago, we were told to turn off lights for an hour and save the planet. Since 2007, when more than 2.2 million obliged, the movement has seen phenomenal growth, with 1.8 billion switching off in 2011. This year, the dark hour was observed in 150 countries and territories across 6,494 towns and cities.

The annual global consumption of electricity, however, has shown no significant downtrend since 2005. Sydney, where the Earth Hour movement famously began in 2007, recorded a 16.6 per cent growth in power consumption in 2007-08.

Delhi, a “developing” city with a higher population and no history of Earth Hour campaigns till 2009, was recording much less annual growth (4-5 per cent) in power demand. What no climate change campaign could have done was probably achieved via the simple expedient of a power tariff hike and stricter anti-tampering initiatives. Now, after four years of Earth Hour celebrations, the capital has recorded a 10 per cent rise in power consumption in 2012.

Tokenism is dangerous. Campaigns like Earth Hour offer us an easy bargain and cheap moral capital. Switch off for an hour, have fun (there is no bar on music blasts), and feel good that we have “cared for” the planet. The next day, life goes on as usual.

10. TRIBAL REMEDY

I have read Arundhati Roy and watched James Cameron’s cult movies. I appreciate Roy’s prose and Cameron’s liberty of imagination. Yes, ancient tribes are being duped of their land and their resources by the modern state. Yes, they are absolutely entitled to resist the plunder of resources that not only disempowers them but also jeopardises the future of the earth.

But, unfortunately, in real life, tribals are not the  Na’vi. Their medicine cannot cure most contemporary diseases. Their farming methods, if any, are not a significant improvement over subsistence. They are also quick to learn the vices of civilisation. Suspended between the old and the new worlds and denied the opportunity to decide their future, most tribal societies are undergoing a socio-economic and moral degeneration. Forget theft, gambling and alcoholism, even rapes are not uncommon among the tribes anymore.

Barring a few historically untouched tribes, such as the Sentinels of Andamans, the indigenous population will certainly be better off outside the time capsules a large section of activists wants to consign them to. Else, the human and ecological consequence of growing tribal populations inside shrinking forests will be catastrophic.

Environmentalists, along with rights activists and the militant Left, have successfully ‘propertised’ the tribal to fight their respective battles. But it is painfully romantic to believe that the planet’s last few green assets will be secure in tribal custody. That is, if those assets, and the tribes themselves, survive the onslaught of mining and industry in the first place.