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STATE OF INDIA’S ENVIRONMENT

UPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS | STATE OF INDIA’S ENVIRONMENT IN FIGURES | 06TH JUNE | DOWN TO EARTH

/ June, 2022, UPSC Daily Current Affairs

SYLLABUS SECTION: GS III (ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY)

WHY IN THE NEWS?

Recently, The NGO Centre for Science and Environment has said that.  India has made little progress on key indicators in 50 years since 1972 while releasing its report The State of India’s Environment 2022: In Figures.

KEY FINDINGS:

Some key data sets in the report:

  1. On agriculture:

  • The cost of cultivation has increased in India by almost 35 per cent (2012-13 to 2018-19),
  • The share of the income from cultivation in an agricultural household has gone down to 37 per cent in 2018-19 from 48 per cent in 2012-13.
  • Simultaneously, 50 per cent of agricultural households in the country are reeling under debt.
  • Some 29 farmers/farm labourers die by suicide in India daily.
  • Nearly 62% of Delhi’s total land is under degradation, being the third in the country after Jharkhand (68.77%) and Rajasthan (62.06%).
  • Areas seeing a decline in the productivity of land in terms of both biodiversity and agricultural cultivability.
  • It will affect agricultural productivity, forest resources, the biodiversity across the city and in turn the livelihoods dependent on it.

 

  1. On solid waste:
  • India generated 3.5 million tonnes of plastic waste, in 2019-20 only.
  • Only 12 per cent of this was recycled, 20 per cent was burnt and the remaining 68 per cent remains unaccounted for, which means it is in the environment (land and water) or in dumpsites.
  • A hazardous waste generation went up by 5 per cent between 2019-20 and 2020-21.
  • e-waste generation increased by 32 per cent between 2018-19 and 2019-20.

 

  1. On-air pollution:
  • Reducing air pollution to meet the World Health Organization’s standards would add 2.2 years to global life expectancy.
  • In India, life expectancy will go up by 5.9 years if the country meets the WHO levels of PM2.5.
  • Delhi continues to record alarmingly high pollution levels, with the annual PM10 level reported at 243 micrograms per metre cube (µg/m3), which is nearly four times the national annual standard of 60µg/m3, placing Delhi behind only Ghaziabad (245µg/m3) and Dhanbad (264µg/m3).

STATE OF INDIA’S ENVIRONMENT

  1. On climate change:
  • India recorded its hottest March, with an early onslaught of heat waves, in 2022.
  • The country reported 280 heatwave days between March 11 and May 18, the highest in the past 10 years.
  • This is almost double of what the country experienced in 2012, the second-highest heatwave year in the past decade.

 

  1. On food and food systems:
  • More than 1.7 million Indians die due to diseases attributable to an unhealthy diet.
  • The diet of an Indian, on average, lacks fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and whole grains.

 

·         CSE’s report shows that Delhi’s performance has deteriorated on 13 indicators spread across eight SDGs in 2019.

·         These include dropout rate at secondary education, crimes against women, sex ratio, and share of industries complying with wastewater treatment norms, among others.

Source: Down To Earth