In ancient
times in India bullock carts were used by people to move around in different
human habitations. In those days there was nothing called rural and urban
centre. All were human habitations, big and small.
As
modernity caught up, the mode of communications kept on changing. From bullock
carts to man-pulled wooden rickshaws, carts pulled by horses, cycle rickshaws,
taxis, town buses, trams, local trains and now metro rail services.
However, the manner in which activists, a section of legal fraternity and
law courts are interfering in developmental activities, particularly on
infrastructure projects including important and urgently required projects like
transportation and communication, in the name of environment protection, days
are not far off when the country would be forced to go back to the bullock cart
era.
A
case in point is the controversy surrounding the Mumbai metro project in Aarey
locality in north Mumbai. In the face of protests by activists and subsequent
intervention by the Supreme Court, the project came to a grinding halt, if not
permanently but at least for the time being.
This
should not have been done. Those who are protesting the Mumbai metro project
must realize that it is being implemented for the betterment of the people.
Once the Mumbai metro project is completed it will reduce the burden on the
local trains, the current lifeline of lakhs of daily commuters in the
commercial capital, by half. If a report is to be believed, the over-crowded
local trains in Mumbai presently claim, on average, seven lives every single
day.
Of
course environment is important. But the damage to it can be repaired by
planting more trees than the number of trees that gets chopped off for a
developmental project. But a complete ban on cutting of trees for infrastructure
projects to protect the environment should not be acceptable in a country like
India which stands far behind several developing countries so far as modern infrastructure
is concerned.
If
the activists and others continued to intervene and halt developmental projects
then the governments, both Centre and the states, should take the country back
to the bullock cart age. The return of bullock carts would ensure absolutely
zero harm to environment.
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