Score of environmental ups and downs so far in 1998

UP
A battle to revive river Mula and clear it of the vast cover of hyacinth was waged by the combined forces of CME, BEG and KCB. The hyacinth bed poses a major environmental hazard, with plastic bags getting entangled in the weeds and mosquitoes making a home there.
In probably the first attempt of its kind, school children were roped in to work towards the preservation of the ecosystem with the initiation of an ambitious vermiculture project at the Savitribai High School on Republic Day. Two thousand kids would be bringing kitchen waste to school to be disposed in the vermiculture pits. Alongwith addressing the garbage problem, the project also seeks to generate revenue for the school. Earn while you learn, huh?
Five new PMT buses hit the roads on January 22 with engines that comply with the stringent pollution control norms, making it the only civic body in the country to have buses adhering to the pollution control rules to be implemented by 2001. Real drive, this.
The Cantonment beautification plan was announced by Brig Madan Gopal, Sub-area Commander. This will include a British period cemetry on Shankarshet road and a natural spring off Sholapur road, that are to be developed as places where people would want to while away their evenings.
The Empress Botanical Gardens revived its flower, fruit and vegetable show after 20 years. Titled Empress Buds and Blooms ’98, it aimed at bringing the gardens back into public gaze and reviving the concepts of evening strolls, picnics and even conferences taking place in the lap of nature.
The Energy Management Centre of the Ministry of Power decided to seek the assistance of IIT professionals to evolve a new formula for the revival of its nationwide campaign to promote energy conservation. To percolate this awareness to the layman, it also decided to publish literature on the subject for common people, list energy-efficient companies and their products and maintain a website on the Internet.
‘Act locally think globally’ was the slogan of the 60-odd senior citizens who put their might behind environment protection. The senior citizens’ morning club and evening roadside club announced its decision to plant trees, set up pigeon holes and so on to protect the ecosystem. Now you know why old is gold.
A total of 500 plants and herbs were displayed in an exhibition at the Ayurveda Rasashala to educate people about the medicinal use of plants and herbs which they use as part of their daily consumption.
Vanrai president and former deputy chairman of the planning commission Mohan Dharia vowed to protect the city’s lungs from concrete cancer. He was reacting to the State government’s proposal to allow 20 per cent residential construction on hilltops and hill slopes in Pune.
The Express Citizens’ Forum filed a writ petition against the State government’s decision to allow 20 per cent residential construction on hill tops and hill slopes.
The Bharati Vidyapeeth Institute of Environment Education initiated an awareness programme where school children are taken on nature trails, with the aim of educating the young on the needs of the ecosystem.
The PCMC cleared a project for power generation by use of garbage at the Moshi Garbage Depot and allotted a letter of intent to the Global Environment Engineering Ltd, asking it to submit the financial details and other parameters for implementing the project.
A one-day token hunger strike was held by several citizens to protest against tobacco companies sponsoring sports programmes and thereby promoting their products amongst the youth. Anna Hazare expressed serious concern over the menace and urged people to give up the habit.
Neelimkumar Khaire, director, Katraj Snake Park, built the country’s first incubator for reptiles. It is expected to deliver two scores of baby pythons within 60 days and thus give a boost to research on Indian rock pythons, whose numbers are fast depleting. For goodness snakes!
The 11 th monsoons are expected to be normal this year over the entire country for the entire South-West monsoon season, thus promising much relief to the populace.
Sixty-five unauthorised hutments at the Janata Vasahat slums on the Parvati hillslopes were demolished in a major drive undertaken by the slum improvement department of the PMC – that’s how the hills should be, clean and green.
The PMC decides to allot a sum of Rs 25 lakh for the touch-up of the Saras Baug gardens that are to be adorned with mussanda flower beds, Taiwan grass, palm trees, lily ponds and misty fountains amongst other desired embellishments.
After focussing his attention on making the Pavana river water clean, PCMC Municipal Commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi targetted the menace of air pollution.
A Jogger’s Park was inaugurated in Salisbury Park and a joggers track begun at the Empress Botanical Gardens.
The CME continued its ban on plastic bags within its premises proving that life without plastic is fantastic.
The PCMC decided to undertake an extensive tree plantation drive in the merged villages to prevent encroachments on open lands. A total of 32,000 trees will be planted on 100 acres of open land at Talawade.

DOWN
The Clean Pune campaign that has so unceremoniously been dumped into the dustbin of history, already.
The State government’s proposal to permit 20 per cent residential construction on hilltops and hill slopes, which will lead to further loss of open spaces on mass scale.
With the Pune district court vacating the status quo in the case of tree-felling, the PCMC decided to chop down 94 trees for the widening of the Mumbai-Pune highway. On the positive side, they claim that 88,700 of the promised 1,23,000 saplings have already been planted by them.
A large stock of chemicals were gutted and several scrap shops damaged in a major fire in a godown in Nehrunagar in Pimpri, sending poisonous fumes into the air.
An advertisement for Star paan masala was shot at the Nehru Stadium in Pune, wherein 400 youngsters were enlisted for the shoot. Citizen activists protested against using’ teenagers for a product which has caused several cases of oral cancer amongst city youngsters.
Contaminated ice made the rounds of the city, leading to heat-related disorders and water-related diseases.
The KCB’s bio-gas project, which could have been the ideal means of propagating the use of alternative sources of energy, proved to be a non-starter with the project developing serious technical snags three times in the last one and a half years.
May 6 was deemed the hottest day in the year and one of the hottest ones in the century for Pune, with the mercury soaring to 42.2 degrees celsius.
Tree-felling continued in full swing on Fergusson College Road, Chatuhshrungi, Sholapur road, Parvati and Ram Tekdi hill in a bid to widen the roads.
Pune’s heritage, which is being neglected due to the lethargic attitude of the Urban Heritage Committee.