Fighting pollution: Jairam’s pat for Vapi, rap for Ankleshwar

One of the most important landmarks of India’s freedom struggle, Dandi was on Wednesday declared an eco-sensitive zone by Union minister of forest and environment Jairam Ramesh. The minister made the declaration in the presence of chairman of Dandi Memorial Committee Gopal Krishna Gandhi in the coastal town.

Apart from Dandi, three villages surrounding Dandi will also be covered under the Environment Protection Act, 1980, he said. Any new industries that want to set up base at Dandi will now have to function under the Act’s purview. A local monitoring committee comprising locals from Dandi, Matwad, Onjal and Samapar villages of Jalapore taluka of Navsari district will be set up to monitor the procedures. “Maintenance of the eco-sensitive zone will be the responsibility of this committee,” Ramesh said.

The villages have a population of 20,000 in all. The eco-friendly development of the region will complete in couple of years’ time. In another important development, the environment minister said that the Gulf of Kutch too will be declared an eco-sensitive zone soon.

“We might have come late, but now that we have arrived we will do our best to preserve the rightful importance of Dandi,” Ramesh said on the occasion. He also added that this initiative should have been taken up a lot earlier, but “better late than never” is the catch phrase in the case of Dandi. As part of the project, an environment friendly ‘smarak’ (memorial) of Gandhiji will also come up.

Talking to a small gathering, Ramesh said that development of Dandi is a national programme and that there is no politics involved. In this endeavour, both the state and central government are together.

Linking Gandhiji with nature and environment, Gopal Krishna said, “Our aim is to see Dandi as an internationally promoted ecological centre. Gandhi was always linked to nature and environment. While developing this historic place, we have to look for ecological gains. We can achieve this objective by establishing bio-shield steps and making the Dandi beach totally pollution-free.”
 
by : times of india