Uttarakhand Affairs
Uttarakhand govt asks defence ministry for choppers to control forest fires in hills
In the wake of risingincidenceof wildfires inUttarakhand, the has written to theministry of DEFENCE, citing what has been termed a worsening situation offorest fires, to provide twoIAFhelicopters which would be deployed in the Garhwal andKumaonregion to douse theforeststhat are burning in these areas.
The forest fires are a result of 80% lesser rains the state received than usual, leaving the entire forest floor dry, and leading officials to anticipate a rerun of the 2016 situation when IAF helicopters had to be deployed as 4,538 hectares of forest area was turned into ashes in wildfires causing loss worth Rs 46.29 lakh.
Notably, in 983 fire incidents this year, over 1,291 hectare forests have been gutted and six human lives were lost, which resulted in loss of Rs 38.29 lakh. The state has lost 735.22 ha forest in Garhwal region followed by 531.01 ha in Kumaon and 24.9 ha of wildlife administration.
In Uttarakhand, 0.17% forest cover comes under extremely fire-prone area, 1.60% is under very highly fire-prone, 9.32% under very highly moderately fire-prone, 21.66% highly moderately fire-prone and 67.25% in less fire-prone categories.
National and International Affairs
Cabinet nod to reimplement law on fighting NCRs bad air
TheUnion cabinet approvedthere-promulgationofordinanceonair quality managementinNational Capital Region(NCR) and adjoining areas spread over four states Haryana,Punjab,RajasthanandUttar Pradesh with important changes that seek to assuage farm unions opposed to the new <a href="https://exam.pscnotes.com/Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture laws.
The re-promulgated legislation has been tweaked to take care of the concerns of farmers who had objected to its substantially high penalty provision for stubble burning in neighbouring states. The multi-member statutory commission will now also have representation from farmers, and construction sectors. Penalty provisions for erring industry or other sectors remain intact with jail term up to five years or with fine up to Rs 1 crore or with both for any non-compliance or contravention of any provision or rules and order or direction of the panel.
The commission had replaced The Supreme Court-backed <a href="https://exam.pscnotes.com/Environment-pollution”>ENVIRONMENT POLLUTION (Prevention and Control) Authority EPCA which had been taking care of the issues of Air Pollution in the NCR for last 22 years. The EPCA had successfully implemented certain measures such as relocation of polluting industries, switching over of public transport buses from diesel to CNG and restriction of entry of polluting trucks in the Capital.