‘Govt’s poor planning turning cultivable land into wasteland’

Nagpur: Improper planning by the state government is turning more and more cultivable land into wasteland, said Alka Chaturvedi, head, post graduate department of Botany, Nagpur University. Giving an example, she said the area towards Wardha Road has good soil quality but the land is being used for a project like Mihan, followed by more and more industries.
“On the other hand, the land along Amravati Road is rocky with scarce groundwater and poor soil quality.But most of the farming is being planned over the same land,” said Chaturvedi while delivering the Ashok Juwarkar memorial lecture organized by CSIR National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (Neeri) at its auditorium on Thursday.
According to Chaturvedi, such practices of not making suitable use of land have played a big role in disturbing the ecosystem. She also blamed the current administrative practices and suggested a new approach named eco-ministration, which is administration of every component of ecosystem in an integrated manner.
“The government has been trying to control natural resources with a typical administrative approach in an isolated manner. For instance, forest and water are two interdependent resources, but we have separate departments and rules to manage them. Therefore I propose eco-ministration,” she said,
Stating that water and forest resources should have one integrated system to meet an area’s food security needs and promote green growth, she said, “For example, a water body on a forest land is used only for drinking purpose by animals. The same water can be used over the grasslands. Such practices can only take place if we consider the ecosystem as a whole and not just separate resources like air water or soil.”
Chaturvedi further said, water has become a commodity instead of being a natural resource. “We have to pay for water because we cannot drink it without purification. In the coming days, we will have to pay for pure air, soil, protection from flood and storm, nutrient cycling etc. The world will have to spend 33 trillion dollars to avail these facilities otherwise available from natural resources,” she said.
Neeri director Rakesh Kumar, Dr JS Pandey, chief scientist and head of Climate Change Cell and Science Secretary, Neeri, and Prakash Kumbhare, head, research and development, planning division, Neeri shared the dais.