In a bid to address environment-related issues in the state, the Environment department for the first time since Independence has published the State of Environment Report West Bengal, 2016.
Sovan Chatterjee, state Environment minister had recently published the report which has been prepared by the West Bengal Pollution Control Board. The 338-page report has been divided into 20 chapters. There are charts, statistical data and maps of all the districts in the state.
Kalyan Rudra, chairman, West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) said it is for the first time since Independence that such an exhaustive report has been published by the PCB. It deals with all the important issues related to environment in the state. The PCB has been conducting programmes throughout the year to create awareness about environment among people along with students from school to the university levels. The report will help the scholars who are working in the field on environment.
The first chapter is on the state of environment in West Bengal with details on soil, rainfall, climate, land, natural vegetation and river network, Ganga-Bhagirathi network, energy scenario etc.
Chapters three and four deal with demography and land and land use. There are chapters on agriculture, forest and wildlife and water resource. There is an important chapter air quality in Bengal. PCB will be conducting a thorough survey on the air quality in the state and it will take two years to complete. The air pollution level in Kolkata goes up during winter while it goes down during monsoon.
"We need to have a comprehensive report on the matter and we are working on it," Kalyan Rudra said. Management of urban solid waste and waste water are two important issues in urban cities. The report deals in details on the issue. There is an chapter on the environment laws that have been passed for protection and management of environment. The groundwater management for Kolkata is an important issue as rampant sinking of deep tubewells has affected the ground water level. The report contains district wise scenario of groundwater. The annual replenishable groundwater resource for the state is 30.5 billion cubic meter.
The report contains articles by scholars working in the field of environment. Subrat Mukherjee, Susanta Kumar Pal, Kalyan Rudra, Sharadindra Chakrabarti, Boissta Kumar Sengupta, Sampa Chakraborty among others.