The standard of the Mahanadi’s ecology has drastically fallen, having adverse impact on the health of population living nearby. In the Cuttack city, 54 per cent of the respondents of a survey felt that the overall quality of water in the river was poor. As many as 80 per cent of the respondents perceived that the odor in surrounding areas of the river had worsened over the last five years and 81 per cent perceived the same for presence of animals/birds around the river. 25 per cent of the respondents perceived no change in the water color and presence of fish in the Mahanadi while 12 per cent of respondents felt that water color had improved.
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) which conducted the survey to gauge perception, awareness, opinion and behaviour of people residing in Cuttack towards environment and river ecology, released its finding recently. When asked to choose between multiple stakeholders responsible for the current quality and hygiene of the river, the opinion was divided between 53 per cent of all respondents identifying the responsibility to the local Government/municipal corporation followed by other stakeholders such as individual citizens (by 40 per cent of the respondents) and industry/factories (by 7 per cent of the respondents). less than 1 per cent of the respondents identified it to be the responsibility of NGOs/trusts and foundation.
85 per cent of the respondents felt that there had been an increase in the amount of industrial waste dumped into the river in the last one year. 95 per cent of the respondents felt that the industrial effluents were not treated as per Government norms before being discharged into the river. 99 per cent of the respondents felt that city sewerage was a threat to the river and sewage water should be properly treated before being discharged into the river.
More than 80 per cent of the respondents said that indicators such as tree cover/green cover in the area, number of bird species and insects in the city, and air quality had worsened. 73 per cent of respondents felt that surface water quality and 66 per cent felt that surface water availability had worsened in the past five years. 53 per cent felt the same for waste and waste management.
89 per cent of the respondents felt that changes in climatic parameters was due to increased human activity, while 27 per cent of respondents felt it was a natural process. While 96 per cent of the respondents felt that temperature had increased, 72 per cent felt that rainfall had decreased over the last five years in Cuttack. 98 per cent of the respondents felt that the frequency of extreme weather events (flood, droughts, and rainfall) has increased in the past five years.
Nearly 90 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that changes in climate had a direct impact on health. 41 per cent of the respondents were not aware about the existence of any Government policy/legislation for water conservation. 28 per cent and 35 per cent, respectively, of the total respondents informed that they were not aware of Government policies/legislations on issues of groundwater usage and climate change.
local Government /Municipal Corporations and consumers, each, were assigned Rank 1 for their efforts in improving the environment by over 30 per cent of the respondents. The State/Central Government and non-profit organisations/ trusts and foundations had been assigned Rank 3 and Rank 4, respectively by about 35 per cent of the respondents. Rank 5 was assigned to academic institutions/ research organizations by about 28 per cent of the respondents and Rank 6 was allotted to the businesses/corporate sector by majority (more than 60 per cent) of the respondents.
99 per cent of the respondents perceived that the quality of the environment had an immediate impact on health. 87 per cent of the respondents informed that water-borne diseases (diarrhoea, jaundice and cholera) were mostly attributed to poor environmental quality, followed by other diseases namely, skin diseases (allergies and skin cancer) identified by 76 per cent of the respondents, and respiratory illness (asthma and lung cancer)noted by 57 per cent of the respondents.