Urgent need to put an end to use of hazardous kite strings
Undoubtedly, a burst of tri-coloured splendour lent by kites flying high in the sky would be a sight to watch on Republic Day. However, if you are planning to contribute to that colourful skyline by flying a saffron-whitegreen kite, remember that you are only permitted to use environment-friendly and safe cotton strings, without any coating that poses a threat to humans, animals and environment.
Kite flying, which should have been a pleasant, relaxing pastime, has turned into a lifethreatening sport, thanks to the use of nylon threads with high tensile strength and coated with finely ground glass. And in the last several years, kite flying with these hazardous strings during festivals and national holidays has led to a number of tragic deaths, besides causing grievous injuries to birds.
Already, reports of such deaths and injuries have come in from different parts of the country, following the customary kite flying during the harvest festival/makar Sankranti/uttarayan/lohri last week.
In Gujarat alone, media reports said as many as 16 people died — mostly on account of their throat being accidentally cut by the sharp manjha. And thou- sands of birds fell prey to the jagged threads. Out of 4,026 birds rescued and treated by the forest department, 214 died. The previous year, the number of birds injured was reported to be 8,300. In Jaipur, 80 people were injured in different incidents connected with kite flying, while 1,100 birds were affected.
There are incidents of these threads cutting power supply lines and electrocuting people. There are also reports of people falling down from roof tops while flying these kites. But the most horrific are those accidents where the sharp threads have slit the throat of people travelling on two-wheelers. And in the last two years, they have killed young children travelling in cars and looking out of open sunroofs. In 2016, two children aged three and four died from such bleeding neck injuries in Delhi while flying kites on the independence day. In both the cases, the sun roof had been opened and the children were standing inside the car and looking out, when the sharp string cut their throat. Last year, on December 31, a fiveyear old girl died in similar horrific circumstance in Surat, forcing the civic authorities there to put fencing on either side of flyovers.
Ironically, following public interest litigations filed by public-spirited citizens and civil society groups, high courts in a number of states have in the past issued directions to state govern- ments to prohibit the use of synthetic cords in kite flying. And promptly, state governments have complied, but without bothering to stringently enforce the ban. Then in 2014, the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change wrote to all states and union territories, asking them to impose a ban, pointing out that the use of these threads for flying kites was in violation of the Wildlife Protection Act and Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. It also pointed to Article 51 A (g) of the Constitution that imposed a duty on every citizen to protect the environment and have compassion for living creatures. Subsequently, state governments issued notifications (between 2015-2017) under Section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, prohibiting synthetic strings in kite flying. The Delhi government, for example, in its notification issued in January 2017, made it clear that kite flying will be permissible only with a cotton thread, free from any sharp/ metallic/glass components/ adhesives/thread strengthening materials. Violations attract imprisonment up to five years or fine or both.
Meanwhile, in response to two petitions filed before it, the National Green Tribunal in July last year imposed a total ban on manjha either made of synthetic material or coated with synthetic material and is non-biodegradable. So let’s put an end to hazardous kite flying!