It is alarming that WHO has ranked 14 Indian cities to be among the 20 most polluted ones globally. This is a serious issue as it does affect, countless lives, even though it may feel like an invisible phenomenon. I was aghast to note that the levels of Air Pollution in our cities have risen to an extent that breathing normal air is equal to smoking twenty-three cigarettes a day.
The occurrences of the heat wave, dust storms, and flash floods have been on the rise. Past week,  some people lost their lives, because of hail storms and thunderbolts in some places.  The root cause for all these natural calamities is nothing but mindless deforestation. Our cities are only concrete jungles. Deteriorating air quality in Hyderabad city is also alarming. The green cover has been fast receding and I see no proper plan on the part the governments to protect the environment. It’s high time the measures of damage control were put in place. The current practice like “planting one sapling and cutting one hundred trees” has to stop otherwise it will leave us in the lurch.
Now are living a life where we have to buy water and I feel if we continue neglecting our environment very soon we may end up needing to buy fresh air too.
Policies to fast-track the use of electric vehicles should become a priority, which KCR may be doing it if everything goes well, as per yesterday’s news report.
The state of our public transport such as buses is a separate story. The Auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers are equally harmful.
Both central and state governments, need to take concerted efforts, to address the serious problem, instead of concentrating on Bullet trains, this is the need of the hour.