DJB to give individual water connections in slums
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has introduced Jal Adhikar Connections for slum dwellers and 100 percent waiver of late payment surcharge for all commercial consumers totalling Rs 1,100 crore. The decisions were taken at the 128th meeting of DJB. The 500 slums that had water access through community taps till now will get individual water connections. The DJB has also decided to renew water bodies and recycle and reuse water.
NCRB finds a reduction in environment-related crimes in the country
The environment-related crimes in the country have decreased by 11 percent last year compared to 2014. The number of green crimes have come down to 5,156 from 5,835 in 2014. However, states like Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Assam have been found to be an exception where the number of enviromental violations have increased over the last year. Rajasthan and UP together accounted for nearly 74 percent of green crimes in the country last year. The crimes related to violations of Forest Act constituted 77 percent of them and included actions such as cutting down of trees, encroaching on forest land and moving forest produce without permission.
Media organisation takes the initiative to save India's coastline
In a move to save India's shoreline, New Delhi television (NDTV) has filed a petition with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) against the threat posed to coastal environment and livelihoods of coastal communities due to the proposed construction of a number of ports across the shoreline. It has demanded for stopping all work on the ports till some decision is made besides asking for the tribunal to take civil and criminal action against the authorities, governments and private companies for causing damage to the coasts, formulation of a national coastal policy, creation of a restoration fund and a continuous environmental, economic and social impact assessment to decide the need for new ports.
More than half of groundwater in south Asia too contaminated to use
As high as 60 percent of groundwater in the Indo-Gangetic basin, supporting more than 750 million people in Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, is not drinkable nor useful for irrigation, finds a study that says that the biggest threat to groundwater is not depletion, but contamination. Twenty three percent of the groundwater in the Indo-Gangetic basin has been found to be too salty at a depth of 200 metres and about 37 percent has been found to be highly affected by arsenic at toxic concentrations.
Yettinahole drinking water project runs into problems
The Rs 13,000 crore Yettinahole drinking water project of the Karnataka government that plans to divert water from the west-flowing Nethravati river to the drought-affected districts of the south--Kolar, Chickballapur, Ramanagaram, Tumkuru, Bengaluru rural and Hassan--has run into trouble because of land acquisition problems, strong opposition from the people of Dakshin Kannada for whom the river is the lifeline and stiff resistance from enviromentalists who say that it will be an enviromental disaster.
This is a roundup of important news from August 29 - 3rd September, 2016. Also read last week's policy matters.