Smart cities must preserve ecology

Green

India has a hundred smart cities. And several flooded, disaster-hit ones.

What gives? In both Kerala and Chennai, abysmally poor environmental conservation caused enormous losses.

Had these areas been mindful of the natural forests and geography, and nurtured these, the excessive rains would have damaged less.

After losing thousands of crores to disasters in these areas, what have the other states learnt?

Not much, suggests the case of Faridabad, a smart city in the National Capital Region.

Faridabad is covered by the Natural Conservation Zone regulations of the NCR Regional Plan, applicable to Aravallis, forests, rivers.

These allow maximum half a per cent of say, forest area, to be constructed. Keeping the Aravallis in the NCZ and acknowledging them is Faridabad’s biggest shield against natural disaster.

Strangely, the Haryana government insists that the Aravallis don’t exist outside Gurgaon, although there is a mountainload of evidence to suggest otherwise. Is this an attempt to rid the NCZ tag for these forests?

This includes the Gair Mumkin Pahar notion, which considers non-agricultural hills as forests, and in this case, the Aravallis.

Faridabad’s brackish water would have prevented it from expanding.

Luckily, the Aravallis served as the city’s giant groundwater recharge, offering sweet water. In the future, they might be the means to prevent floods and mitigate drought. How does ignoring all this help the city become smart?

Citizens’ security isn’t restricted to being saved from robbers, rapists and accidents. We deserve the safety that conserving our eco-systems alone can offer us.

NEW DELHI: