Okhla residents accuse BJP and Congress of trying to poison people by promoting waste incineration to generate electricity. The plant is being put through trial runs. Even as candidates contesting municipal seats in the national capital make their rounds of residential colonies to seek votes, citizens and waste-pickers' associations are angered by the election manifesto of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). One of the promises it makes is electricity from waste by setting up incineration plants in various parts of the city.
Say studies have shown that Indian waste is unfit for the purpose. With the fear of losing their means of living looming over them, waste pickers from across the country have opposed Delhi government’s plan to install three waste to energy plants in the city. “How can the proposed energy generation of 40 MW justify the loss of 350,000 jobs,” asks Dharmendra Yadav, general secretary of All India Kachra Sharamail Mahasang (AIKSM) which organised a state-level meet of waste pickers on December 22.
Heavy rains have wreaked havoc in eastern Uttar Pradesh leaving 28 people dead, while the water level in major rivers is rising.
While 18 people were killed in incidents of wall and house collapse in Jaupur district, 10 deaths were reported from Mirzapur district which received 120 mm and 150 mm respectively since Saturday, officials said on Sunday.
The monsoon remained subdued in parts of North India on Monday, including Punjab and Haryana, even as the flood fury was unabated in Uttar Pradesh.
Major rivers continued to overflow, inundating a number of villages in Uttar Pradesh and disrupting the transmission of Doordarshan and AIR in Bareilly.
LUCKNOW: The fact that Gomti's flow and level have reduced drastically has caught the attention of the government which is now mulling to constitute a river conservation unit for its restoration and conservation. The river, reeling under the bane of pollution and encroachment, has its flow reduced to one-third and is in an urgent need of revival.
Groundwater with high geogenic arsenic (As) is extensively present in the Holocene alluvial aquifers of Ghazipur District in the middle Gangetic Plain, India. A shift in the climatic conditions, weathering of carbonate and silicate minerals, surface water interactions, ion exchange, redox processes, and anthropogenic activities are responsible for high concentrations of cations, anions and As in the groundwater.
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has adversely affected harvesting of Rabi crop in the Gangetic belt as labourers are busy digging ponds, leaving farmers high and dry.
In some places the labourers have even jacked up their rates, saying they will work in fields only if they get more than Rs 100 per day as wage.
Though meat traders have called of their strike and agreed to work at the Ghazipur slaughterhouse, illegal slaughtering is on the rise in various areas of the Capital, say sources.
According to them, most of the illegal slaughtering is being done in Seelampur, Jafrabad, Okhla, Khureji and some other areas.
