JAIPUR: After rendering the agricultural land infertile, the huge amount of ground water being used for dyeing industry on the banks of river Bandi in Pali is fast depleting the groundwater and adv

Jawadia/Pali: Villagers in the quaint village Jawadia, barely three kms away from Pali, are silent spectators to the political drama.

Four Rajasthan villages get microgrid solar power using an innovative pre-paid meter that detects theft

The state government is rearing a white elephant in the name of sewerage treatment plants (STP) and the concept of water treatment to generate potable water is merely an eyewash, says a two-member

With loss of habitat and rising incidents of human-bear conflicts plaguing the sloth bear population in Rajasthan, the state government has drawn up an ambitious conservation plan for the nocturnal

Jaipur: With TOI repeatedly highlighting the continued discharge of effluents into the Bandi river, the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board (RSPCB) on Sunday ordered closure of all textile units in Pali for the next two days.

“About 400 textile units have been told to remain shut for two days as there were reports of excess effluent generation and discharge by them into the Bandi river,” said O P Gupta, regional officer RSPCB, Pali. He said the Pali Water Pollution Control Research Foundation (PWPCRF) Trust will look at the effluents discharged from the industries and ensure that the norms are regulated. The PWPCRF is one of the very first co-operative pollution control bodies in the country and was initiated by the industry itself.

Jaipur: The UPA’s mid-day meal programme in Rajasthan is in tatters. The recently released Monitoring Institutions (MIs) report has revealed glaring anomalies in implementation of the scheme with many children in the state not getting any benefits and some actually going hungry.

According to a report, the scheme is not being implemented on a regular basis in some schools in the Pali district. The findings, based on figures between April 2011 and September 2011, were shared recently by the Union HRD ministry.

JAIPUR: Yet another river is dying, this time in the environment minister's constituency. Not long ago, river Bandi in Pali district was a seasonal river.

In absolute disregard to environment , three out of the four common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) don't have consent to operate since March 2011, he said. "Textile dyes are toxic, highly stable and do not degrade easily and are not removed by conventional wastewater treatment methods. Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) staff took samples of water from several points, ranging from CETPs, drains from industries , wells and hand pumps in villages downstream.

Jaipur: The draft report of Rajasthan State Action Plan on Climate Change has brought out some alarming facts about the water situation in the state. According to the report, the state has the highest probability of drought occurrence in the country. It also falls within areas having greatest climate sensitivity, maximum vulnerability and lowest adaptive capacity.

According to the report, “high dependency on groundwater has resulted in its overexploitation, with nearly 80% of groundwater witnessing depletion. The quality of groundwater has also progressively deteriorated. The stage of groundwater exploitation which was 35% in 1984 has reached a level of 138% in 2008

Rajasthan is the largest state of India experiencing recurrent forest fires. The present study determines forest burnt areas through remote sensing-based time series analysis. IRS P6 AWiFS satellite data covering March, April and May of six years (2005–2010) were used to cover all forest-fire events. The total forest burnt area was assessed as 53,023.5 ha in 2005; 44,681.5 ha in 2006; 57,689 ha in 2007; 89,655.2 ha in 2008; 199,837 ha in 2009 and 144,816 ha in 2010. Forest fires were observed only in the southern Aravallis.

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