Sunday, October 14, 2012

Red Crab in Gangasagar

Few days ago, I've written a letter to District Magistrates of North 24Paraganas, South 24-Paraganas, Howrah, Hoogly, Nadia and Murshidabad to the effect that steps may be taken for "saving Ganga" during the ensuing festival season. I have mentioned that there are Pollution Control Board guidelines of how immersion of idols should be handled. I have also referred to the good work being done in Kolkata by KMC (patrolling the ghats, placing vats, creating awareness through a Green Puja award, lead-free paint etc) and requested them to take action through the ULBs for ensurng a pollution-free Ganga during the Puja season.
We will hold a meeting with Puja organisers of New Town on  the 18th Oct evening to inculcate good practices. An award for Best Puja in New Town may also be announced - a practice that had started earlier but has faded away.
I went to Sagar island yesterday and held a meeting today morning. We discussed some short term and long term plans under NGRBA. Chunar De, Programme Director SPMG, N.S.Nigam District Magistrate South 24-Paraganas, PHE and Tourism officers as well as local panchayat and MLA were there.
During the site visits, I could, with some difficulty, capture a photo of red crabs moving freely in the beach. Here is it:

Red Crab in Gangasagar

2 comments:

  1. The initiative is definitely noble.
    But perhaps we need to give a more specific guidelines to the ULBs of Dos and Donts for immersion. If things are not properly defined, people tend to interpret the loose ends in multiple ways. I hope PCB Guidelines are detailed and well circulated. I think you also know in India it is better to have some sort of penalty if some ULBs grossly violate those guidelines. This is for increasing compliance.

    Also perhaps we need to generate a huge amount of awareness if we can ever dream of reaching a point of stopping the immersion in Ganges.

    It will be great if you can share some of the short term and long term plans under NGRBA for the areas in Sagar Island vicinity.

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  2. Just wrote a letter to the Mission Director NGRBA requesting them to include Gangasagar in the scheme

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