Question

To what extent docs government regulations and new laws solve problems of pollution? Discuss one example each of the success and failure of legislation to change the quality of :
(a) public life
(b) private life

Answer 1

Answer:

The government regulations and new laws had a mixed history of the successes and failures:

(i) New legislations in London were not taken seriously by the factory owners. They were not ready to spend on technologies that would improve their machines.

(ii) The Smoke Abatement Acts of 1847 and 1853 failed to clean the air.

(iii) Calcutta (Kolkata) became the first Indian dry to get the smoke nuisance legislation.

(iv) In 1920. the nee mills of Tollygunge began to burn rice husk instead of coal, leading residents to complain that ’the air is filled up with black soot which falls like drilling rain from morning rill night, and it has become impossible to live’. The inspectors of the Bengal Smoke Nuisance Commission finally managed to control the industrial smoke.

Answer 2

Answer:

Government laws play an important role in controlling the rates of pollution in a city. However, simply passing laws is not enough. They need to be properly enforced as well. So, apart from

legislations, government also needs to carry out intensive public awareness programmes aimed at educating the public about the need and ways of controlling pollution; and about how they too have a stake in environmental governance.

Examples of how legislation changed the quality of Public life:

City developments everywhere occur at the expense of ecology and the environment. Large quantities of refuse and waste products polluted air and water and excessive became a feature of urban life.

(i) Failure: Colonial authorities also made efforts to control pollution but the railway line introduced in 1855 brought a dangerous new pollutant into the picture Coal from- Raniganj.