pollution in ladhak
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EH : Jigmet Takpa, Project Director, LREDA: Pollution means contamination of air, water or soil. When it goes beyond a limit, it can cause great harm to our health and environment. Pollution is mainly caused due to the change in the lifestyle of people.
Earlier, everything in Ladakh used to get recycled. Due to change in the lifestyle of locals and by the demands of the tourist industry, Ladakh has gone for different kinds of the waste disposal system. And we are not equipped to deal with the management of the whole system.
Coming to water pollution, the main problem is sewage disposal. Earlier it was used/ recycled as manure. Now we use the flush system to dispose of human waste. What is needed is sewage treatment plant for both at individual and community level.
In Ladakh, we don’t construct a septic tank, instead, we construct a soak- pit in which all the waste is made to sink inside and decompose in it. They get soaked into the soil and can contaminate the underground water. And if any bacteria contaminate the underground water, it will be harmful to the people.
Sewage treatment plant must be designed to work in extreme climatic conditions as done in European countries. Secondly, it has to be completely treated and disposed of in a proper manner.
With the spread of the tourist industry, there is a lot of disposal garbage. Though the MC collects it, disposal has been a big challenge. For garbage, we need to have a garbage management system. In Ladakh, we need to have rules and regulations. For instance, if any person produces garbage, he must pay for it. Any amount of garbage you produce, either you dispose of yourself or you give it to the municipality. The MC must charge for its garbage disposal service.
Biodegradable waste can be changed into manure and used for agricultural purposes. Another very important thing is biomedical wastes. All biomedical waste contains a lot of concentrated pathogens, chemicals, drugs, and their tools like needles are very dangerous if they come in contact with people. We need to have a different system to regulate the biomedical wastes. They also contain dangerous metals like mercury which are highly poisonous. Many drugs are poisonous. If they go into the water and aquifer, they can pollute it.
When we talk about air, it is only through vehicles and the majority of the vehicles are privately owned, and most of the cars in Leh are SUVs. They run on diesel and for the efficiency of diesel combustion, they use lead for better compression and ignition. They are poisonous, and directly affect the brain and nervous system. They are dangerous especially for young children whose mental health and growth can be hit.
What is a pity is that there is no regulation to check this kind of pollution. In other states, there are strict norms to regulate diesel vehicles. In some states, diesel vehicles are heavily taxed.
Another important thing is how we can minimise the problem of the number of vehicles. You cannot ban vehicles but you can impose heavy taxes on them. We should make everything a bit costly. We construct roads worth crores, then why not charge toll tax?
Proper waste disposal is very important in the sense that all the city ills like dog menace are due to improper waste management. The dog population is directly proportional to the availability of food in an area. Earlier, their population was very small but now since all the garbage is openly thrown around, there is enough food for the dogs to proliferate.
Solutions:
We need to have a pollution control regime and a waste management system in place.
We need to have political and administrative will to implement it. It should be strictly enforced.
Need the vision to turn Ladakh clean.
The Pollution Control Board should implement all the rules and regulations, and citizens should be awakened to take up the cause to protect the environment and to control pollution.
Waste segregation is important.
Old vehicles should be discarded. We should not allow the second-hand vehicle to enter Ladakh.
Dr.Tsering Stobdan, DIHAR Scientist: Yes, pollution has increased in Ladakh due to increasing population, tourists and the army. We have done a calculation on how many dependencies of foodgrains, vegetables and fruit is there in Ladakh. How much we are dependent on outside things for our requirement. We found that food grains dependency is 72.8 %, vegetable dependency 67% and fruits dependency 85%. Looking at this kind of data, our dependency rate is very high and our local production is very less. Hence, we have to bring all these things from outside
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