One Day, while reading the news about
water scarcity during this summer a thought came by, we have so many dams
nearby, which are filled to its capacity during the rainy season almost every
year, still the next summer we again face the same situation about scarcity of
water. So is that we waste a lot of water? Or is the water getting lost
somewhere? Or we need to increase the capacity of the dams? etc... We can think
of a lot of similar problems and/or solutions about it. Later on, I got
thinking that it’s not just the scarcity of water, but many other problems that we
face each and every day; like traffic, pollution, increased temperate, etc etc.
over which we do not have a direct control as such, but we our self are
responsible to it either knowingly or unknowingly.
Majority of these problems exist in our
cities and due to our cities; cities where we are working and living to earn our daily bread; cities
where we come in search of better amenities; cities where we want to spend our
whole life; cities where the future of our country is being built. And yet we
continue to face the problems in cities...? So what we do is, we blame the city
governance for the problems we are facing, the infrastructure is insufficient,
roads are small, city management is bad, etc etc. Some of which are in fact true!!!
But these problems can only be solved when everyone including the local
governance, individuals, state governments, central government work towards
solving it.
Instead of just concentrating on
development in cities across the country, we need to look at how we can bring
about a change in our small towns and villages to make it more livable place,
producing well jobs there itself; instead of moving to cities looking for a
better lifestyle & jobs. Every place has some or the other limitation to
it, in terms of space, resources, etc. and they should be taken
care of, else we are ought to see the ill effects of it that will harshly
affect us. Not every person can live in a city. Moving from small towns,
villages to live in cities is on rise in our country, and day by day the count
of people migrating to cities in increasing, thereby making cities over crowded. Population residing in urban areas in India, according to 1901 census, was 11.4%. This
count increased to 28.53% according to 2001 census, and crossing 30% as per
2011 census, standing at 31.16%.According to a survey by UN State of the World
Population report in 2007, by 2030, 40.76% of country's population is expected
to reside in urban areas. As per World Bank, India, along with China, Indonesia, Nigeria and the United States, will lead the world's urban population surge by 2050
(Wikipedia). Mumbai saw large
scale rural-urban migration in the 21st century. Mumbai accommodates 12.5
million people, and is the largest metropolis by population in India, followed
by Delhi with 11 million
inhabitants. Witnessing the fastest rate of urbanization in the
world, as per 2011 census, Delhi's population rose by 4.1%, Mumbai's by 3.1%
and Kolkata's by 2% as per 2011
census compared to 2001 census. Estimated population, at the current rate of
growth, by year 2015 of Mumbai stands at 25 million, Delhi and Kolkata at 16 million each, Bangalore and Hyderabad at
10 million.
As a consequence of it, apart from
environmental issues like irregularity in rainfall, global warming, etc; we are
facing many man made problems like, increased slum areas, increased
crime rates, scarcity of water, electricity shortage, increased traffic, air-water-sound-waste pollution, and many many more serious problems.
