The modern city of Chandigarh provides poor quality of water to the city residents. The city has emerged in list of worst-performing States and Union Territories in terms of environmental well-being.
Chandigarh has been ranked 27 among 28 States and 7 Union Territories for water quality in Environment Performance Index 2012 drafted by Planning Commission.
Indicating a dismal performance in terms of water quality, the city was given a score of 0.5811. The indicators taken into consideration to observe water quality are domestic waste water treated, surface water quality, sewage disposal, dissolved oxygen and percentage of ground water extraction.
Even as city’s MP Pawan Kumar Bansal remained the Union Minister of Water Resources for a long time, Chandigarh has apparently stayed deprived of any assistance from the Centre for the betterment of water quality.
The Environment Performance Index (EPI) has been worked out in five categories including air pollution, forests, water quality, waste management and climate change. A total of 16 indictors are considered under these five categories. A letter regarding the environmental performance of Chandigarh was sent to the UT Administration by the Planning Commission.
In terms of waste management, the city is ranked 10 among various states and union territories. The parameters in waste management are municipal solid waste, bio-medical waste, hazardous waste.
As per the EPI, out of 370 TDP collected municipal solid waste, only 150 is treated. Out of 9736.08 metric tonnes per annum (MTA) hazardous waste generated, 3938.84 MTA is temporary disposed and 3939 MTA is landfill, 4 MTA is incinerated. As far as bio-medical waste is concerned, 1690 kg/day is generated and the same amount is treated.
The performance of union territory of Chandigarh in climate change planning was most deplorable. The city is ranked 30 in climate change planning considering the indictors of preparation of State Action Plan for Climate Change, RE Growth Rate including mini-hydro, electricity intensity of SGDP.
In terms of air quality, the City Beautiful again presented a dismal picture. The city is placed at 14th position with considering the parameters of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particulate matter.
last year, the ambient air quality levels monitored by Chandigarh Pollution Control Committee also showed that Sulphur Dioxide and Nitrogen oxide are below the permissible limits of 40 -60 µg/m3 in the city but SPM and RSPM levels exceeds the permissible limits.
The only criterion in which UT remained fortunate was the forest conservation. Chandigarh with an average score of 1 has been named as best place in criteria of forests which included indicators like contribution to national average, increase/decrease in forest cover, growing stock and afforestation efforts.
On forest conservation, Chandigarh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh are among the five best-performing States that have preserved forests as well as increased cover.
Chandigarh scored 0.8841 in air quality, 1 in forests, 0.0380 in climate change and 0.6963 in waste management, 0.5811 in water quality. The city has been given a cumulative score of 0.6399 and a rank of 9 considering all the five criterions.
According to the Planning Commission, the cumulative EPI is a measure of the environmental well being of the states/UTs and the places with a score of 1 are characterized by cleaner environment, adherence to environmental standards including implementation of legislation and institutional mechanism and efforts towards national resource conservation.
In the EPI, States/UTs namely Mizoram, Kerala, Goa, Sikkim, Tripura, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar, with an average score of 1, have been ranked as the best States in terms of air quality.
On water quality standards, except for Himachal Pradesh, which has set up 100 per cent treatment capacity for sewage, the treatment capacity in the remaining States ranged from 0 (13 States/UTs) to less than 20 per cent (8 States/UTs) and over 50 per cent in four States/UTs.
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