WHY ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION TASK FORCE NEEDED IN PUNJAB?

POLICE STATIONS ALSO BE SET UP TO ENFORCE ENVIRONMENT LAWS

An announcement to have a Anti Gangster Task Force to control and eradicate the gangsters by AAP government is a welcome move to get rid of this scourge from the society suffering from kidnappings, murders and ransom. Now another task force which is required is ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION TASK FORCE to get rid of environment polluters which is required in order to ensure SUSTAINED DEVELOPMENT which should be the focus of the new government. It becomes   pertinent to have dedicated police units which take care of environment /pollution law violators. These will be very important for making   the already grown industrial cities like Amritsar, Ludhiana, Mandi Gobindgarh, Jalandar and upcoming industrial hubs free from all kinds of pollution.

WHY THEY TASK FORCE IS REQUIRED TO HAVE DEDICATED ENVIRONMENT POLICE STATIONS?

We need dedicated units under the task force to see quick results because otherwise violators do not get charged for their crimes at all or they wriggle out due to corrupt and callous pollution control system under friendly political mafia.

These are required to police the environment so as  to ensure that the air, land , water and sub soil  are not polluted further by unscrupulous elements. For eg. the police is very alert in nabbing a person who commits a murder but who will take arrest  a person who does slow murder of many  persons via cancer and deatha which are  outcome of  other diseases induced by consuming water and food pollutted by owners who have continuously been dumping dyeing industry residues, electroplating metals and chemicals in surface drains like Buddha Dariya and in sub soil water to pollute aquifers in whole of Punjab . Hence the requirement to act now is to stop polluters now .The  responsible municipal authorities need to be held accountable for leeching of chemicals from solid waste dumps into surface and subsurface water because of non segregation and dumping of all types of waste in garbage even including bio medical waste. Any common citizen also needs to be held responsible for violating pollution rules. A strict and focussed vigil is necessary to stop and tackle the rampant release of untreated cancer causing and other killer chemicals in the sewerage water/ storm water system which goes to pollute the rivers and downstream waters because these polluted waters are further causing genetically induced mutations in unborn children as they become part of drinking water and food chain. These can actually be termed as SLOW MURDERS/POLLUTION CRIMES because these cancer induced deaths or other fatalities take place years to happen after the commitment of crime of polluting the environment by a person or group of persons. So as to stop these slow crimes altogether time to act is now.

WHY SUCH A DRASTIC STEP IS REQUIRED?

We have seen nothing happening from decades while  all this has been happening  under the very nose of pollution control authorities from decades due to lack of people voices, very little government and bureaucratic focus, political support to violators and corrupted pollution control system.

Now why we need this ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION TASK FORCE? Because is to put the fear of God and fear of rule of law by designating these environment police stations  because some naysayers will say that another link to corruption chain of police will be added. But answer is if we do not act now with a focussed no nonsense approach and have faith in honest functioning of these stations because remember all these years we have had normal police stations controlling laws and order so let’s hope that  environment police too works honestly is accountable to government and civil society. Another reasons these require focus is that the laws are being violated with impunity by all violators but they do not get charged because we consider these as not very serious offences and thus no rigorous follow up of the cases takes place to nail the culprits and send them to jails because most are closed in initial stages or are not registered due to corruption and political interference.

WHY TIME TO REFOCUS ON POLLUTION FREE ENVIRONMENT?

The need is to refocus on environment issues and thus stopping and eradicating the soil, air and water pollutions now. Actually these should have been the focus of SWACH BHARAT MISSION campaign. Crimes ranging from littering to sub soil chemical dumping are all part of environmental violations because anything which is not disposed properly becomes an environment violation. The air violations which cause pollution for breathable air are given a goby despite they cause severe problems like allergies, respiratory diseases and even environment degradation of infrastructure. All dumping ground of garbage are pollution centres as the method of storing and managing the garbage including transportation is not environmentally safe and causes air , water and soil pollution. All this needs to change and needs government focus.

WHY TECHNICAL MANPOWER TO STUDY AND POLICE ENVIRONMENT VIOLATIONS?

Punjab will become the first state in the country to pay attention to sustainable development by establishing and giving focus on the main issue of environment protection.

These police stations under Anti Pollution Task Force will be manned by technical qualified work force recruited by police and not borrowing staff from pollution control board  because the staff of the pollution control board are corrupted and are the ones who have overlooked such violations and have been thoroughly callous in the implementation of environment protection laws, rules and regulations leading to this present environmental disaster we are all facing and the hope to have a pollution free Punjab in future looks very bleak unless we take the environment protection road map seriously.