CB BureauA survey that claims to gauge the perception, awareness, opinion and behaviour of people towards the environment in Indian cities has concluded that over 80 per cent of Indians believe that ‘human activity’ is the cause of climate change.
Titled Environmental Survey 2015 and conducted by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the survey covered seven river cities including Delhi on river Yamuna, Cuttack on Mahanadi, Dibrugarh on Brahmaputra, Jabalpur on Narmada, Surat on Tapti, Varanasi on Ganga, and Vijayawada on Krishna. The survey was divided into three sub-sections – overall environment, health and environment, and environment in river cities.
‘People’s perceptions may or may not reflect reality, but they do reflect their confidence level in government, their engagement with common cause issues and their daily fears,’ reads a statement by Dr Leena Srivastava, acting director-general, TERI, in their media release.
Survey findings
- The youth have been identified as the most important group to be targeted to improve the condition of the rivers.
- More than 75 per cent of respondents said that they visited the river bank mainly for performing religious or social rites.
- About 78 per cent of respondents perceived an increase in the amount of industrial effluents dumped into the river in the last one year.
- About 64 per cent thought that the industrial effluents being dumped into rivers are according to government norms.
- Nearly 78 per cent of respondents were optimistic about the success of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in improving the quality of the rivers.
- About 46 per cent felt that the overall water quality of the river flowing through their city was ‘poor’.
- About 43 per cent opined that individual citizens were the most responsible for the current quality and hygiene of the river in their city.