- The modern-day requirements commensurate with the increase in population demand suitable provisioning of amenities. This is taken up under the umbrage of developmental works necessitated by the perennial unavailability of limited resources. None would deny that the developmental works must take precedence since the aspirational society always looks forward to growing. Little wonder, every other person wishes to settle down in an urban dwelling offering all the modern amenities, as well as quality healthcare and education. Cannot fault the people for aspiring to be amid cutting-edge technology-driven innovations, inventions, and developments. However, it’s another matter altogether to comprehend that unabated infrastructure developments in sensitive areas should be carefully considered.
PC: The Economic Times
- Take, for instance, the ecologically sensitive hilly region like the Himalayan states, where rampant infrastructural development works have seen a manifold increase. As it is, the global community is witnessing environmental degradation induced by erratic weather vagaries, leading to catastrophic consequences. As you are aware, natural disasters have visited Uttarakhand regularly of late. It excels in worsening their toll rashly. The horrifying visuals of a swollen, angry river sweeping away scores of buildings as if they were bathtub toys are still playing on repeat on TV. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as bad as 2013. But it was quite terrifying. However, frequent natural disasters may, unfortunately, sometimes set the images one apart.
PC: CSR Mandate
- This aptly sums up the narration of the recent cloudburst in Uttarkashi. It led to flash floods in the high-altitude villages of Dharali. This extreme weather event occurs in a small area and is rarely predicted by weather monitoring systems. IMD had given an extremely heavy rainfall warning for several districts in the state. However, what we see in those terrifying visuals is how a cloudburst can wreak destruction in a mountainous region, gaining inordinate power through valleys and steep slopes, in a way impossible to control. The other thing impossible to miss is how abundantly construction was sitting in the riverbed, as if with no sense of the river’s nature and its rights of passage. What else do you call other than man-made disasters here?
PC: Construction Week India
- In the moment that one gasped and feared that 2013 was being repeated, everything that happened then, from which the state was supposed to emerge chastened and reformed, streamed in one’s mind. That June, the cloudburst sent such flash floods down to Kedarnath to Rishikesh that thousands of villages suffered, and over 5,000 people went missing. There was a hyper focus on how unregulated real estate development had exponentially worsened the toll that the natural disaster would have taken. Nature has hardly stopped serving such warnings. The 2021 glacial lake outburst flood that tore into Chamoli and the 2023 subsidence in Joshimath were two biggies. Uttarakhand govt must take sustainable development seriously.
, Uttarkashi, and other locations, emphasizing the need for sustainable development practices.){kind=link}