Dear Editor,
Through your esteemed newspaper I want to highlight the following few points for the general public of for the sake of the environment of our State. From years our greed has been busy to cut down vegetation cover of the catchment area of the main lakes and rivers of J and K. Our lust for money with the help of corruption of the guardians of these vegetation has created this situation. The vegetation cover delayed the flow of rain water down to the river. Due to it the most of the water get absorbed in the ground to enrich the underground water level. It also checks the speed of flowing water and slows down it which make it weak and unable to wash away the soil.
Our first blunder:
Without or very little cover of vegetation allows the rain water to flow down to the river rapidly in very short time.
Almost all the rain water in large quantity reaches the river, very little quantity of water gets absorbed in the ground.
Without vegetation cover, there is nothing to check the flow of water and its flow is strong enough to wash away large quantity of soil ( soil erosion.)
Our second blunder:
The area of the sources of drainage of rain water is encroached by us to make fields and houses. The river banks or area around lakes are encroached and their natural size is reduced. So their intake capacity also reduced.
(Suppose if we place a half inch pipes to flow down the rainwater from our roof top instead of four or six inch pipes.)
This is a man-made tragedy and we have been slowly creating it from years. Nothing has been done to repair the loss of the these catchment areas of the rivers or lakes, not even small step has been taken in time-‘A stitch in time, saves nine’.
If we don’t nurture our environment today, it will stop nurturing us tomorrow.
R. S Aithmia
Old Satwari, Jammu Cantt
