Day 3 EPCO training on Environmental Management

Day 3 was a technical session. The technical aspects of environmental Management were taught. Sessions on 'Climate Change' and 'Water as a resource' were taken. Ms. Sonal Khare presented the statistical facts about the Green House Gases(GHGs). Again a shocking fact came into fore as to it is not the CO2 but the other  industrial gases like CH4, SFC etc  are the major pollutants. Quite an interactive session it was, we all shared our experiences and ideas. There were many civil engineers as participants,  their ideas about green buildings were quite innovative. Little adjustments in the construction can make buildings green and a lot of resources can be saved.

Things like contribution of GDP in the development of nation and the Happiness Index used by Bhutan were the topic of  debate.

The next session was on 'Water a commodity or a natural resource?' taken by Ms.Rajita kurup. The categorization of water as Blue-Grey-Black and the conservation was quite interesting to know and the misuse of water in terms of 'virtual water' i.e. indirect use of water. To make 1 litre of petrol approximately 88 litre of water is used, These facts are alarming, but not much has been done to address the problem.

Things that I learnt from the session:

MP has the highest cattle population and thus the emission of Methane.
CDM- Clean Development Mechanism
UNFCCC- convention on climate change.
NAPCC-National Action Plan on Climate Change
The State Action Plan on Climate Change(SAPCC) of MP is  prepared by the EPCO team of Climate Change cell with the immense contribution of many experts and representatives of departments, Mr. Lokendra Thakkar being instrumental in the process.

Then there was regular submission of assignment and Valedictory session. Each participant was involved in the certificate distribution in terms of presenting it to another.
I wrote a poem on the last day:

Workshop बहुत छोटी थी 
पर अनुभव  बड़े  थे!

 Workshop बहुत छोटी थी 
पर वाद-विवाद बड़े थे !

Workshop बहुत छोटी थी 
विचार बहुत बड़े थे !

गाँव बहुत छोटा था 
पर कूड़े कई पड़े थे !

गाँव बहुत छोटा था 
पर समस्याएँ कई बड़ी थीं

                           दिल बहुत छोटा था 
                           जगहें बड़ी बड़ी थीं !!

प्रकृति की गुहार Plea of 'Nature'

प्रकृति की गुहार


In the poem below the nature is speaking about its helplessness given all that exists and still it finds itself to be धराशायी that is defeated, degraded and depleted. This poem is an attempt to express the feelings of 'nature.'

धरती बहुत,
धरने सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धन बहुत,
धनवान सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धुंध बहुत,
धूमिल सभी
और मैं  धराशायी!


धाक बहुत,
धाराएँ सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धार बहुत,
धड़कने सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धुन बहुत,
धव्नियाँ सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धूप  बहुत,
धधकन सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धैर्य बहुत,
धीरजवान सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धार बहुत,
धाराएँ सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


ध्रूत बहुत,
धिक्कारें सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धुर्व बहुत,
ध्रुवतारे सभी
और मैं धराशायी!


धांस बहुत,
धधकन सभी
और मैं धराशायी!

Day 2 EPCO training on Environmental Management

So have now got the time to sum up the learnings from the Day 2 of the training on Environmental Management programme at EPCO (Environmental Planning and Coordination Organization) Bhopal.

Here we go.......

Day 2 was quite a brainstorming session and of course the most debatable one as the groups that went on the field the previous day are supposed to give presentations on the field experience and the guided topics. Group A had been assigned a field visit to an urban slum and Group B to a rural area.

The first presentation was of group A. It was a good presentation, the Shnati nagar slum they visited was a good example of the Community development programme. Some astonishing facts included the Rain water harvesting system implementation and the waste disposal. The slum dwellers were quite active and the samiti had really done a commendable job in terms of daily disposal of waste and water harvesting plants. The only issue that came up was the re-habitation proposed by the govt. The group was very enthusiastic about the developments but the other group that is mine were not convinced that the facts they are quoting are real.

Any way after a heated debate which was intervened by the facilitators, we got our chance to present and our presentation was based on the shortcomings of the 'Niraml gaon' we went to. As the village was awarded the status of 'Nirmal gaon' with a cash award of rupee one lac our expectations from the village were quite high in terms of Health, Education and Sanitation. What we observed was that all the progress was superficial, nothing commendable has been done, the ground reality was different from the one mentioned 'on-papers'. For example construction of NADEP pit; it was there but didn't put to use, the sewage system was not up to the mark, women did not attend the school and to a large extent the children too, open defecation was prevalent, solar panels were not working. The facilitators who went with us made us realise the fact that the change is gradual, motivation level has to be increased then only you could expect a consistency in the performance.

The next session was a knowledge talk by Mr. Kailash Pant, a renowned personality with many awards to his accolade especially in promoting Hindi. He spoke about the issues like 'Self esteem' nature in terms of the cultural degradation when we talk about nature it is not only the 'natural resources' but also the 'human resources'. Some points that strike the conscience were:

मनुष्य बनने का क्या लक्ष्य होना चाहिए ?
पद यात्रा का महत्व

His session was followed by a talk by Mr. Dhurva Shukl a  famous writer and thinker. 'सच का सामना ' is a great book in which the present concern of depleting natural resources has been addressed in a very innovative manner. The book is yet to complete but the portion I read till now is mind stirring.
He also raised some very serious aspects of human behaviour which have led to the condition of today. The disrespect of nature that human race has done in his view is the root cause of all the destruction, he termed it as प्रकर्ति का अनादर , प्रकर्ति से झगड़ा . This disrespect of nature has made man think himself to be the superior and the only race that exist on the earth. He raised a question of 'Qualification of existence'.
The most interesting part of his talk was the techniques used by the people of previous generations(when technology was not dominant) to locate the winds, the winds were supposed to have names like पुर्वय्या , पूचुआ  and they guided about the crop rotation techniques, the reason behind keeping a mud pot under Durga's feet is to know the growth of the wheat crop in advance.

Some ideas and concepts that I liked are:

Flooding Customer care centres rather than Citizen care centres
Pollution of language
मानसिक पर्यावरण का प्रदूषण
Wall Marts and the malls of today increase cholesterol and the local sabzi mandis increase energy

The last session for the day was the calculation of Water footprint which was meant to calculate the quantity of water consumed by us per week and consecutively per year. It was an eye-opener, we were shocked to know the consumption of water by us and to our surprise it is not the food for which we consume much water, it is the Industrial products and the Life style that consume an enormous amount of water.My consumption came out to be 2358434 litres per year..... hope to control it from now on. Have learnt a lot from the WFP ( water footprint calculator), will describe the process in the later blog.

to be continued.........

Environmental Management programme by EPCO, bhopal

Environment has always been a topic close to my heart. I love nature( want to say it like this; I am a nature lover by nature:)) My hobby is to be in the company of nature, exploring landscapes et al but never been to many places as I find the nature at its best at my place Bhopal. There are abundant lakes and green land  to go and simply sit and talk to the nature. 'Bharat Bhavan' is my all time favourite place to spend time with the upper lake. The backyard on the roof is an extremely quiet place to sit,you can have the view of the lake and almost 75% of the city. This love for nature keep me awake to learn some or the other thing about it given the elephantine problem of pollution today, try to know more about how can I contribute to make earth a better place to live.

EPCO The Environmental Planning & Coordination Organisation is the State's premier organization in the field of environment related matters. It has made a strategic shift to focus on environment issues that confront the poor in the rural and urban areas. A lot of work has been done by the organization in terms of sensitising people about the environment related issues. They conduct training workshops on a regular basis and this time I've got the opportunity to attend a course on Environment Management. 

Today is the day 2, so just quoting my experiences of day1. 

The programme was scheduled at 8 and we were already briefed about it via mail. Most of the participants were late including me;) The workshop already started an hour late. While the introduction was taken by Mr. Lokendra Thakkar, the principal of the institute, a kit was distributed to us. It was beautifully arranged, along with the regular schedule and a quiz paper on Gandhiji's life there were two publications in the folder one was आज भी खरे हैं तालाब by Anupam Mishra and अनमोल बूँदें a booklet by UN habitat prog ( Water for Asian cities, UN Human settlement prog.) आज भी खरे हैं तालाब describes about the development of lakes and the rich culture of India to make water bodies and the techniques used to construct a lake like the three tier technique, the dynamics of related occupations, celebrations associated with it et al( have not yet read the whole book, will describe it in the later blog). अनमोल बूँदें describes the technical aspects of retaining ground water and the water purification technology.The session began with a thought provoking lecture by Mr. Uddayan Bajpayi, a thinker, Writer, Philosopher, doctor and a researcher. The versatile personality led us to a different world of reality through his knowledge talk. He took us to the era of 1800s and talked about the British invasion of India and the attacks on Indian culture, the गौ रक्षा आँदोलन of 1888 and the truth behind it, the hand-loom revolution, the plight of Red Indians and all about our existence in continuum with the nature. Some facts that I learnt from the talk are:

*Indian culture was disgraced by the British Parliament in 1813
*The गौ रक्षा आँदोलन was against the British army not against the Muslims.
*In the Japanese book of metallurgy the iron made by the Indian tribe 'Aagarhiya' had been awarded the best iron of the century. 

Some quotes which I liked are:
*circulation of decision for discussion( निर्णय का flow)
*separation is never absolute( i.e. we are in continuum with the nature) Having attended his lecture one book which I've added to my reading list is 'Hind Swaraj' by Mahatma Gandhi.

Post lunch we were taken to a field visit after a brief introduction on the topic 'Sanitation' by Ms. Neeta Shukla. 

Some interesting facts learnt were:*Quantity of germs liberated by 250gms of stool via open defecation
*Global hand washing day is observed on 15th of oct since 2008
*The seven components of a 'Nirmal Gaon' and the 'Ujjawal gaon' and the various schemes of the govt. to promote sanitation.Mr. Amod took a session on 'Drinking Water in MP n CG. Some interesting facts learnt are:

*40/55 lpcd( litres per capita per day) in the vicinity of 500 metres is the standard
*A very good point he raised was the non availability of data with the govt. about ground water in terms of its being 'over exploited' and in the 'critical stage'.

to be continued..................................