Degradation all around

Rakesh Lohumi

The multiple challenges on the environmental front the country is facing today belie its age-old cultural tradition of nature worship and Vedic beliefs that rivers, lakes, mountains and forests are sacred entities which sustain life. The earth was never treated as a resource for economic exploitation but revered as Mother Nature that sustained all forms of life on the planet and, thus, cannot be defiled.
The Vedic view maintain that all that exists in nature is essential for survival of human beings. However, neither the ancient wisdom of the seers nor the advances in the field of science and technology made in recent times has helped the country to preserve its environment. It is in the midst of a huge environmental crisis and the situation is worsening progressively.

A multi-dimensional crisis

While climate change has thrown up concerns like retreating glaciers, declining precipitation, loss of biodiversity, frequent extreme weather events, floods and landslides, the ever-increasing human activity is causing severe degradation of environment due to growing pollution. The impact of the unsustainable development model being pursued in the country since long has now started affecting the quality of life.

India figures among the world's most polluted countries today. The national capital of Delhi has been hogging headlines for clocking record levels of air pollution leading to an emergency like situation every winter. In fact, out of the world's 20 most polluted cities as many as 13 are in India. Not only surface water but even ground water has been contaminated in with chemicals and other pollutants. Even venerated rivers have been defiled and Ganga and Yamuna are among the world's ten most polluted rivers today.
With an increasing population and growing economy water, land, forests and other natural resources are bound to come under mounting pressure. With just 2.2 per cent of the global land and 16 per cent of the world population the country needed to conserve its natural resources and environment at all costs. However, environmental concerns were overlooked.
Lop-sided development policies, lax enforcement laws and indifferent governance made things worse.
Haphazard urbanization, industrialization, unregulated mining, indiscriminate felling of trees, impounding and diversion of rivers for power generation, construction of highways and other development projects have taken a huge toll on the environment.

The ruthless exploitation of limited natural resources, injudicious use of pesticides, excessive tapping of ground water, indiscriminate deforestation and the consequent natural habitat destruction have led to sharp degradation of ecosystems. These man-made factors have further accentuated the impact of global warming and pushed the country into a multi-dimensional environmental crisis .Cities have been burdened beyond their carrying capacity, aggravating the problem of traffic congestion, parking space, water scarcity and waste disposal.

Veritable gas chambers

While increasing vehicular emissions are adding to air pollution, the urban waste is causing water and land pollution.
The free flowing streams and rivers are becoming sludgy and cities turning into veritable gas chambers due to unchecked pollution. Every winter smog frequently paralyses life in Delhi,the most polluted capital city in the world along with Beijing.
In November 2016 the Air Quality Index (AQI) touched a record high of 999 creating an emergency like situation as the peak levels of PM10 (diameter 10 microns) and PM2.5 (2.5 microns) shot up to levels ten times more than the safe limits of 100 and 60,respectively.
The situation is no better in other cities. As per the World Health Organisation's (WHO) report "Ambient Air Pollution 2016" India has the highest number of 33 cities in the in the list of 100 most polluted cities of the world. In fact, 22 of its cities figured in the top 50 most polluted cities. The impact on health can be judged from the fact that at peak pollution levels air quality in Delhi was as bad that in hailing it amounted to smoking 40 cigarettes a day. The Lancet Commission has in its report ranked India as number 1 in pollution related deaths(1.8 million), followed by China (1.58 million). In an estimated 9 million pollution linked deaths the world over in 2015.
At present only about 25 per cent of the total 62 million tonnes of garbage being generated annually by 377 million people living in urban areas is treated and the rest 45 million tones is dumped untreated. Further, most of the existing landfills have exhausted their capacity even though only half of the solid waste is directly reaching the landfills.

ruthless exploitation of limited natural resources, injudicious use of pesticides, excessive tapping of ground water, indiscriminate deforestation and the consequent natural habitat destruction have led to sharp degradation of ecosystems. These man-made factors have further accentuated the impact of global warming and pushed the country into a multi-dimensional environmental crisis.

As per projections in Planning Commission Report (2014), based on 0.45 kg per capita per day waste generation, the quantum of urban waste generated will shoot up to 165 tonnes in 2031 and further to 436 tonnes in 2050. Every year 1,175 hectare of land will be required for new landfills for disposal.
The existing ordinary landfills contaminate the underlying soil due to seepage of solid waste. Scientific landfills are designed to check seepage and leakage, retard and reduce generation of methane which can be used for producing electricity. A scientific landfill at Narela-Bawana in Delhi, which became operational recently, may pave the way for scientific disposal of garbage in the country.

Polluting rivers

The bulk of waste water also flows into rivers or just seeps into land due to inadequate treatment facilities. Untreated and partially treated sewage, industrial effluents and construction are the main pollutants contaminating the water bodies, besides silt due to accelerated soil erosion, a consequence of large scale deforestation.
As per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation 56.4 per cent population was connected to sewer network and bulk of the wastewater released untreated.
As per a CPCB report out of the 61754 million litre per day (MLD) of sewage generated treatment capacity exists only for 22963 MLD (32 %). The 35 metropolitan cities collectively generated 15,644 MLD of sewage but their treatment capacity was only 8040 MLD. The treatment capacity shortfall for 498 Class I cities is 68 % and 410 Class II cities is 92 %, the combined shortfall comes to 70 percent.
Injudicious use of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides are also causing pollution as agriculture run-offs carry the residual chemicals to the rivers. The availability of fresh water is constantly declining and the quantum of waste-water and solid waste being generated due to unbridled urbanisation is increasing The streams are getting contaminated. Natural flows are not enough to absorb the load of pollutants. Severe contamination of water sources was a major cause of epidemics like jaundice and other water-borne diseases.

While the Swatch Bharat Mission initiative has created awareness among common people about cleanliness, a lot more is needed to be done for proper disposal of sewage and waste water to achieve the target. The shortage of water and lack of facility for disposal of excreta is a big impediment. The growing demand and declining availability of fresh water makes it imperative for the country to go for treatment and reuse of waste water in a big way.

The only hope

A consequence of political expediency, myopic policies and bad governance the unregulated urbanization has been a major factor behind the rapid degradation of environment. Multistoried structures were allowed to come up in and around the existing town without augmenting the basic civic amenities like water supply, sewerage, garbage disposal, roads, public transport and other required infrastructure. Besides causing pollution, it is also accentuating the rain havoc by triggering floods.
The increase in the frequency of urban floods in recent years is fallout of reckless constructions that totally destroyed vegetation and the natural drainage system. The natural channels that drained out storm water have been narrowed down or wiped out altogether.
With hardly any vegetative cover left even a mild spell of rain results in huge run-offs as the storm water flows quickly over impervious surface. No surprise Gurgaon, Bangaluru ,Delhi ,Mumbai and other cities are experiencing frequent floods during monsoon.
Instead of enforcing building regulations governments across the country, irrespective of the party in power, have been coming out with policies to regularise illegal structures and encroachments. The situation has become worse in and around urban areas, where land prices are high, as every inch of land is being covered. Even drains, creeks, khads and rivers have been gobbled up by builders.Large colonies, clusters of multi-storied buildings, roads and other constructions have come up without proper drainage.

A country like India with second largest population in the world and limited environmental resources has no option but to come up with a policy and effective regulatory framework to check deforestation, control pollution, protect water bodies, regulate urbanisation and restrict human activity in ecologically fragile areas.

The only hope

With elected governments going all out to placate the offenders, it has been left to the judiciary to step in and stem the rot. Courts have been frequently forced to intervene to make the indifferent regulatory bodies to act against the violators. Recently, the Himachal High Court quashed the amendment to the state town and country planning act vide which illegal structures were sought to be regularised on "as is where is" basis. The Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) have issued several directions to the Centre and the Delhi government to take steps to check air pollution in the national capital but not much headway has been made. In fact, the authorities concerned try their best to find ways and means to circumvent the court orders or delay implementation.

China performing better

In contrast, China realised early that economic growth at the cost of environment will prove counterproductive and took effective steps to curb pollution and other negative fallouts of development activities. In India environmental governance continues to be a matter of political expediency. There is no dearth of technical expertise, laws, rules and regulatory agencies only political will is lacking. China is doing far better than India in mitigating the impact of development activities on environment. India and China were ranked at 141th and 109th,
respectively, among 180 countries in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI)-2016. EPI takes care of many highpriority environmental issues, like resource consumption, depletion of environmental assets, pollution and species loss. Besides, effectively checking pollution, the country faces multiple challenges of preserving the stressed forest reserves, falling water table, depleting sources of fresh water, melting glaciers, degrading soil, protecting biodiversity and maintaining the resilience of eco-systems which sustain human livelihoods. However, the country seems reluctant to address these environmental concerns.
The two most populous countries faced same environmental challenges but China has managed to control pollution of its rivers and urban air pollution over the past decade. Beijing and Delhi are two most polluted capitals but air pollution has dipped by 40 per cent in the former and increased by 20 percent in the latter over the past 15 years. As per the WHO report on air pollution China has only three cities as against India's 13 cities in the list of world's most polluted cities. Air pollution could reduce life expectancy of 660 million affected Indians who live in cities like Delhi by 3.2 years, while in case of China the reduction will be marginally lower at three years.

Impact of climate change

Lopsided development policies and poor governance are aggravating the fallout of global warming in the country, particularly in Himalayan states. The unrestrained spread of concrete jungle, setting up of big hydropower plants, mining projects, cement plants and unscientific construction of roads have hastened the process of environmental degradation in the region with third largest deposits of snow and ice after the north pole and south pole and often referred to as the "third pole". Large chunks of forests have disappeared and the increased run-offs from the mountains are not only eroding the precious top soil and silting up the rivers but also causing floods downstream.

Declining snow & rain

The environmental fallout of increasing biotic pressure is already discernible in the form of decline in both snowfall and monsoon precipitation. The seasonal snow cover has benn receding in regions areas like Shimla, Mussourie, Manali, Dharamsala, Naimital ,Kasauni and Kasauli which have witnessed rapid development in recent times. Water sources are drying up fast, leading to an acute water scarcity during summer.
Large-scale deforestation and concretisation have altered the microclimate and as a result the seasonal snowline is receding fast. As per studies conducted by scientists of meteorological department the snow season in Shimla has been shrinking at an alarming rate of 11 days per decade since 1991 and the overall precipitation during winter (December to March) has also been declining with the decadal average

The availability of fresh water is constantly declining and the quantum of waste-water and solid waste being generated due to unbridled urbanisation is increasing .

With elected governments going all-out to placate the offenders, it has been left to the judiciary to step in and stem the rot. Courts have been frequently forced to intervene to make the indifferent regulatory bodies to act against the violators.

coming down from 283.9 mm (1991- 2001) to 235.1 mm (2001- 2011). Rainfall data of Bhakra Beas Management Board shows a steady decline in monsoon (June-September) precipitation catchment areas of Sutlej and Beas rivers.
The total rain has come down from 1,092 mm in 2008-09 to 621 mm in 2018-17, an alarming decline of 44 per cent in less than 10 years. Reduction in rainfall was more pronounced in north and northeast India, mainly due to large-scale conversion of forests to crop lands. It affected the evapotranspiration process by which moisture is transferred from soil to atmosphere through plants. Unlike the deep rooted forest vegetation, the shallow roots of crops are unable to extract water which results in reduced recycled precipitation.
At the same time frequent extreme weather events are causing widespread devastation across the country. A number of major calamities like Kedarnath disaster, floods in Mumbai, Bangluru, Chandigarh and Chennai, Srinagar deluge, Ladakh cloudburst and sudden surge in the Kosi river together claimed thousands of lives and caused widespread destruction. The melting glaciers are giving rise to a new hazard - glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) - caused by moraine-dammed lakes. A risk assessment carried out by Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has revealed the presence of over 8,000 glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region, out of which about 200 are potentially dangerous. As per the Himachal Centre for Climate Change, the number of morainedammed lakes has shot up by 109, from 596 in 2013 to 705 in 2015 in Himachal which has already experienced one such event in the bursting of Parechu Lake in Tibet.
A country like India with second largest population in the world and limited environmental resources has no option but to come up with a policy and effective regulatory framework to check deforestation, control pollution, protect water bodies, regulate urbanisation and restrict human activity in ecologically fragile areas, particularly the high altitude ranges of Himalayas.

A Shimla-based seasoned journalist, formerly with The Tribune, and an expert on environmental issues.



		EDITOR'S MAIL FROM THE EDITOR Economic Scene Farmers' community Rural India Tribal Community Education Need to focus on Higher Education Frontiers of science PNB Scam Law and order Growing inequality Job creation Sakala Syndrome Environment Sports management The Power of Yoga Art of living US STRATEGY DATELINE BEIJING SIGNS OF THE TIMES Issue:Mar' 2018 Subscribe Now	Environment Degradation all around Rakesh Lohumi The multiple challenges on the environmental front the country is facing today belie its age-old cultural tradition of nature worship and Vedic beliefs that rivers, lakes, mountains and forests are sacred entities which sustain life. The earth was never treated as a resource for economic exploitation but revered as Mother Nature that sustained all forms of life on the planet and, thus, cannot be defiled. The Vedic view maintain that all that exists in nature is essential for survival of human beings. However, neither the ancient wisdom of the seers nor the advances in the field of science and technology made in recent times has helped the country to preserve its environment. It is in the midst of a huge environmental crisis and the situation is worsening progressively. A multi-dimensional crisis While climate change has thrown up concerns like retreating glaciers, declining precipitation, loss of biodiversity, frequent extreme weather events, floods and landslides, the ever-increasing human activity is causing severe degradation of environment due to growing pollution. The impact of the unsustainable development model being pursued in the country since long has now started affecting the quality of life. India figures among the world's most polluted countries today. The national capital of Delhi has been hogging headlines for clocking record levels of air pollution leading to an emergency like situation every winter. India figures among the world's most polluted countries today. The national capital of Delhi has been hogging headlines for clocking record levels of air pollution leading to an emergency like situation every winter. In fact, out of the world's 20 most polluted cities as many as 13 are in India. Not only surface water but even ground water has been contaminated in with chemicals and other pollutants. Even venerated rivers have been defiled and Ganga and Yamuna are among the world's ten most polluted rivers today. With an increasing population and growing economy water, land, forests and other natural resources are bound to come under mounting pressure. With just 2.2 per cent of the global land and 16 per cent of the world population the country needed to conserve its natural resources and environment at all costs. However, environmental concerns were overlooked. Lop-sided development policies, lax enforcement laws and indifferent governance made things worse. Haphazard urbanization, industrialization, unregulated mining, indiscriminate felling of trees, impounding and diversion of rivers for power generation, construction of highways and other development projects have taken a huge toll on the environment. The ruthless exploitation of limited natural resources, injudicious use of pesticides, excessive tapping of ground water, indiscriminate deforestation and the consequent natural habitat destruction have led to sharp degradation of ecosystems. These man-made factors have further accentuated the impact of global warming and pushed the country into a multi-dimensional environmental crisis .Cities have been burdened beyond their carrying capacity, aggravating the problem of traffic congestion, parking space, water scarcity and waste disposal. Veritable gas chambers While increasing vehicular emissions are adding to air pollution, the urban waste is causing water and land pollution. The free flowing streams and rivers are becoming sludgy and cities turning into veritable gas chambers due to unchecked pollution. Every winter smog frequently paralyses life in Delhi,the most polluted capital city in the world along with Beijing. In November 2016 the Air Quality Index (AQI) touched a record high of 999 creating an emergency like situation as the peak levels of PM10 (diameter 10 microns) and PM2.5 (2.5 microns) shot up to levels ten times more than the safe limits of 100 and 60,respectively. The situation is no better in other cities. As per the World Health Organisation's (WHO) report "Ambient Air Pollution 2016" India has the highest number of 33 cities in the in the list of 100 most polluted cities of the world. In fact, 22 of its cities figured in the top 50 most polluted cities. The impact on health can be judged from the fact that at peak pollution levels air quality in Delhi was as bad that in hailing it amounted to smoking 40 cigarettes a day. The Lancet Commission has in its report ranked India as number 1 in pollution related deaths(1.8 million), followed by China (1.58 million). In an estimated 9 million pollution linked deaths the world over in 2015. At present only about 25 per cent of the total 62 million tonnes of garbage being generated annually by 377 million people living in urban areas is treated and the rest 45 million tones is dumped untreated. Further, most of the existing landfills have exhausted their capacity even though only half of the solid waste is directly reaching the landfills. ruthless exploitation of limited natural resources, injudicious use of pesticides, excessive tapping of ground water, indiscriminate deforestation and the consequent natural habitat destruction have led to sharp degradation of ecosystems. These man-made factors have further accentuated the impact of global warming and pushed the country into a multi-dimensional environmental crisis. As per projections in Planning Commission Report (2014), based on 0.45 kg per capita per day waste generation, the quantum of urban waste generated will shoot up to 165 tonnes in 2031 and further to 436 tonnes in 2050. Every year 1,175 hectare of land will be required for new landfills for disposal. The existing ordinary landfills contaminate the underlying soil due to seepage of solid waste. Scientific landfills are designed to check seepage and leakage, retard and reduce generation of methane which can be used for producing electricity. A scientific landfill at Narela-Bawana in Delhi, which became operational recently, may pave the way for scientific disposal of garbage in the country. Polluting rivers The bulk of waste water also flows into rivers or just seeps into land due to inadequate treatment facilities. Untreated and partially treated sewage, industrial effluents and construction are the main pollutants contaminating the water bodies, besides silt due to accelerated soil erosion, a consequence of large scale deforestation. As per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation 56.4 per cent population was connected to sewer network and bulk of the wastewater released untreated. As per a CPCB report out of the 61754 million litre per day (MLD) of sewage generated treatment capacity exists only for 22963 MLD (32 %). The 35 metropolitan cities collectively generated 15,644 MLD of sewage but their treatment capacity was only 8040 MLD. The treatment capacity shortfall for 498 Class I cities is 68 % and 410 Class II cities is 92 %, the combined shortfall comes to 70 percent. Injudicious use of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides are also causing pollution as agriculture run-offs carry the residual chemicals to the rivers. The availability of fresh water is constantly declining and the quantum of waste-water and solid waste being generated due to unbridled urbanisation is increasing The streams are getting contaminated. Natural flows are not enough to absorb the load of pollutants. Severe contamination of water sources was a major cause of epidemics like jaundice and other water-borne diseases. While the Swatch Bharat Mission initiative has created awareness among common people about cleanliness, a lot more is needed to be done for proper disposal of sewage and waste water to achieve the target. The shortage of water and lack of facility for disposal of excreta is a big impediment. The growing demand and declining availability of fresh water makes it imperative for the country to go for treatment and reuse of waste water in a big way. The only hope A consequence of political expediency, myopic policies and bad governance the unregulated urbanization has been a major factor behind the rapid degradation of environment. Multistoried structures were allowed to come up in and around the existing town without augmenting the basic civic amenities like water supply, sewerage, garbage disposal, roads, public transport and other required infrastructure. Besides causing pollution, it is also accentuating the rain havoc by triggering floods. The increase in the frequency of urban floods in recent years is fallout of reckless constructions that totally destroyed vegetation and the natural drainage system. The natural channels that drained out storm water have been narrowed down or wiped out altogether. With hardly any vegetative cover left even a mild spell of rain results in huge run-offs as the storm water flows quickly over impervious surface. No surprise Gurgaon, Bangaluru ,Delhi ,Mumbai and other cities are experiencing frequent floods during monsoon. Instead of enforcing building regulations governments across the country, irrespective of the party in power, have been coming out with policies to regularise illegal structures and encroachments. The situation has become worse in and around urban areas, where land prices are high, as every inch of land is being covered. Even drains, creeks, khads and rivers have been gobbled up by builders.Large colonies, clusters of multi-storied buildings, roads and other constructions have come up without proper drainage. A country like India with second largest population in the world and limited environmental resources has no option but to come up with a policy and effective regulatory framework to check deforestation, control pollution, protect water bodies, regulate urbanisation and restrict human activity in ecologically fragile areas. The only hope With elected governments going all out to placate the offenders, it has been left to the judiciary to step in and stem the rot. Courts have been frequently forced to intervene to make the indifferent regulatory bodies to act against the violators. Recently, the Himachal High Court quashed the amendment to the state town and country planning act vide which illegal structures were sought to be regularised on "as is where is" basis. The Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) have issued several directions to the Centre and the Delhi government to take steps to check air pollution in the national capital but not much headway has been made. In fact, the authorities concerned try their best to find ways and means to circumvent the court orders or delay implementation. China performing better In contrast, China realised early that economic growth at the cost of environment will prove counterproductive and took effective steps to curb pollution and other negative fallouts of development activities. In India environmental governance continues to be a matter of political expediency. There is no dearth of technical expertise, laws, rules and regulatory agencies only political will is lacking. China is doing far better than India in mitigating the impact of development activities on environment. India and China were ranked at 141th and 109th, respectively, among 180 countries in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI)-2016. EPI takes care of many highpriority environmental issues, like resource consumption, depletion of environmental assets, pollution and species loss. Besides, effectively checking pollution, the country faces multiple challenges of preserving the stressed forest reserves, falling water table, depleting sources of fresh water, melting glaciers, degrading soil, protecting biodiversity and maintaining the resilience of eco-systems which sustain human livelihoods. However, the country seems reluctant to address these environmental concerns. The two most populous countries faced same environmental challenges but China has managed to control pollution of its rivers and urban air pollution over the past decade. Beijing and Delhi are two most polluted capitals but air pollution has dipped by 40 per cent in the former and increased by 20 percent in the latter over the past 15 years. As per the WHO report on air pollution China has only three cities as against India's 13 cities in the list of world's most polluted cities. Air pollution could reduce life expectancy of 660 million affected Indians who live in cities like Delhi by 3.2 years, while in case of China the reduction will be marginally lower at three years. Impact of climate change Lopsided development policies and poor governance are aggravating the fallout of global warming in the country, particularly in Himalayan states. The unrestrained spread of concrete jungle, setting up of big hydropower plants, mining projects, cement plants and unscientific construction of roads have hastened the process of environmental degradation in the region with third largest deposits of snow and ice after the north pole and south pole and often referred to as the "third pole". Large chunks of forests have disappeared and the increased run-offs from the mountains are not only eroding the precious top soil and silting up the rivers but also causing floods downstream. Declining snow & rain The environmental fallout of increasing biotic pressure is already discernible in the form of decline in both snowfall and monsoon precipitation. The seasonal snow cover has benn receding in regions areas like Shimla, Mussourie, Manali, Dharamsala, Naimital ,Kasauni and Kasauli which have witnessed rapid development in recent times. Water sources are drying up fast, leading to an acute water scarcity during summer. Large-scale deforestation and concretisation have altered the microclimate and as a result the seasonal snowline is receding fast. As per studies conducted by scientists of meteorological department the snow season in Shimla has been shrinking at an alarming rate of 11 days per decade since 1991 and the overall precipitation during winter (December to March) has also been declining with the decadal average The availability of fresh water is constantly declining and the quantum of waste-water and solid waste being generated due to unbridled urbanisation is increasing . With elected governments going all-out to placate the offenders, it has been left to the judiciary to step in and stem the rot. Courts have been frequently forced to intervene to make the indifferent regulatory bodies to act against the violators. coming down from 283.9 mm (1991- 2001) to 235.1 mm (2001- 2011). Rainfall data of Bhakra Beas Management Board shows a steady decline in monsoon (June-September) precipitation catchment areas of Sutlej and Beas rivers. The total rain has come down from 1,092 mm in 2008-09 to 621 mm in 2018-17, an alarming decline of 44 per cent in less than 10 years. Reduction in rainfall was more pronounced in north and northeast India, mainly due to large-scale conversion of forests to crop lands. It affected the evapotranspiration process by which moisture is transferred from soil to atmosphere through plants. Unlike the deep rooted forest vegetation, the shallow roots of crops are unable to extract water which results in reduced recycled precipitation. At the same time frequent extreme weather events are causing widespread devastation across the country. A number of major calamities like Kedarnath disaster, floods in Mumbai, Bangluru, Chandigarh and Chennai, Srinagar deluge, Ladakh cloudburst and sudden surge in the Kosi river together claimed thousands of lives and caused widespread destruction. The melting glaciers are giving rise to a new hazard - glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) - caused by moraine-dammed lakes. A risk assessment carried out by Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has revealed the presence of over 8,000 glacial lakes in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region, out of which about 200 are potentially dangerous. As per the Himachal Centre for Climate Change, the number of morainedammed lakes has shot up by 109, from 596 in 2013 to 705 in 2015 in Himachal which has already experienced one such event in the bursting of Parechu Lake in Tibet. A country like India with second largest population in the world and limited environmental resources has no option but to come up with a policy and effective regulatory framework to check deforestation, control pollution, protect water bodies, regulate urbanisation and restrict human activity in ecologically fragile areas, particularly the high altitude ranges of Himalayas. A Shimla-based seasoned journalist, formerly with The Tribune, and an expert on environmental issues.