“There is an urgent need to change the Forest Conservation Act and Wild Life Protection Act which are colonial in nature and are also creating problems for people of Uttarakhand,” he said advocating a holistic look at sustainable development of the backward State.
Mr. Kaushal said it was high time the policy makers, politicians and the handful of so-called environmentalists woke up to ground realities and paved the way for real development of Uttarakhand.
The environment laws had held up construction of roads in a State where nearly 40 per cent of the villages do not have roads, power supply or schools. This meant that the environment was being used as a tool to block all avenues for the future generation, Mr. Kaushal said.
Abandoned projects
Highly critical of the government for abandoning power projects under construction or declaring vast stretches of rivers like the Ganga as eco-sensitive zones, Mr. Kaushal wondered why the so-called highly-qualified engineers and scientists could not tap the river waters in an ecologically sustainable manner. Mr. Kaushal wondered at the rationale behind allowing the State Forest Corporation to cut trees worth over Rs.400 crore every year while denying wood for constructing houses, fuel wood and fodder from forests to the poor living inside or on the periphery of forests.
He also wanted immediate resumption of the system of riverbed dredging to avoid floods in the hill State. It is common knowledge that the Himalayan rivers get a lot of stones and rubble from the hills during rains which if not picked raise the level of the riverbeds resulting in floods. This ban on dredging had also made construction material very costly in the State, he said.