Not Heat Centers... Our cities need to become Green Centers.

A few days ago, a shocking report was published for all of us. The report says that nine cities of the country are suffering from excessive heat! Also, the report says that not a single city in our country has green cover as per the World Health Organization (WHO) standards! Due to this, the heat center area of the big cities of our country is increasing very shockingly. Also, the average temperature of nine cities of the country has been recorded from 42 degrees to 45 degrees and this increase in the temperature is a direct threat to the biodiversity and human life!. These cities are Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai, which have changed their heat patterns alarmingly.

If we want to understand the seriousness of this subject, we have to look at some statistics. WHO says that it is very important to have 50 square meters of green cover per person in cities for good health of people. But not a single city in the country has such a green space of 50 square meters per person. If we look at the four cities of the country, we will realize that Delhi has only 10.41 square meters of the green space per person. In Jaipur, this figure is 6.67 square meters. Kolkata has only 6.61 square meters of green space per person, while Pune has only 1.4 square meters of green space per person!

And, this lack of greenspace figures isn't just related to just heat. These statistics of Greenspace are directly related to air pollution, the health effects of millions of people, and also linked to water scarcity. As Bangalore struggles with acute water crises, we are also getting the news that more than fifty percent of the country's reservoirs have less water than required. So now, with the reference of this case..what point of view should we consider for the lack of green covers? Are we waiting for a major disaster?

We all have to accept that less green cover has become a red alert for our multi-million population. If we do not take any steps in this direction now, a large population will suffer from very big accidents or serious health related diseases. On the other hand, in 'Uday India', we have seen in various columns that there is a lot of misunderstanding regarding green covers. I have observed that many state governments do haphazard plantations to show green covers, in which they give utmost importance to the non native or invasive species of trees that grow fast. On the other hand, almost all native trees of India take three to five years to grow!

Due to this, non-native species are planted in most of the cities. The species that do not give us any benefit in green cover but seriously damage our urban biodiversity. So what is the solution to this serious problem? If the readers remember, we discussed the need of an Urban Forest Policy once in our article of 'Uday India' itself. There, I mentioned that all major cities in India need an effective urban forest policy. The policy also should have specific guidelines regarding plantation.Under this policy, every city should also have a fixed budget, and they should also have an entire policy to protect the urban plantations! More importantly, like the inspiring success of the implementation of National Clean Air Program (NCAP), the Urban Forest Policy will also have to be implemented on a national level, managed and monitored by an agency of the Central Government.

Otherwise, if this entire policy planning is left to the states individually, then each state will prepare their policy on its own account. Also, some states will turn out to be those for which such a policy and implementation has no value at all, so they will not make any such policy! This is high time now... As we say in Hindi, 'Abhi Nahin to Kabhi Nahin', the time has come for all of us... That, too, when we as a country we are leading the world in the field of climate change!

I hope that the Central Government will work effectively in this direction and surely bring and implement a Central Urban Forest Policy. After all, this is the same government, which has done the whole world proud in the field of renewable energy. This is the same government, which has launched what can be said to be the largest project in the world to clean the river Ganga. Also, this is the same government, which has set a target of zero carbon emissions by 2070.