How will you ever find a solution?

There is such a hue and cry— and rightly so— over the air quality (or lack of it) of Delhi that it has garnered international ‘fame’. Yet, a busy, bustling central part of the capital of UP is facing the worse imaginable air quality! Yes, Lucknow’s Aishbagh-Motinagar-Rajendra Nagar ‘triangle’ has earned the dubious distinction of being the highest polluted region of the earth, going by the woeful hyperbole of the locals and the natives— and it does not even gets a mention (figure-wise) on the pollution records of the state or central pollution control boards! If you go through the areas where pollution or air quality monitoring is done in the city, Aishbagh would appear on the charts but with a hyphen (--), which indicates no recording. Even as the authorities concerned loudly claim Lalbagh to be the highest polluted areas in the city due to traffic; this ‘triangle’, even more dangerous than the Bermuda Triangle as you cannot avoid it, continues to choke thousands of suspecting and unsuspecting individuals.

You need not mull a lot over the reason for this critically dangerous state of air here: Plywood factories and sawmills situated bang in the midst of the residential colonies speak for themselves. The Aishbagh sawmills are notorious for being ‘invisibly’ there and so do the killer plywood units, situated ‘strategically’ in Aishbagh, Motinagar and Rajendra Nagar. Everyone passes by them, everyone is pestered by them and everyone is aware of them— including the local police, administration, forest and political bigwigs— yet no one is ready to acknowledge them and get rid of them. For some reason best known to them, even the chief minister and the MP and MLA have failed to notice them during any one of their frequent visits to the famous Ramlila Ground here. This is the same venue that had Prime Minister Narendra Modi as chief guest during one of its Ramlila functions some years back. So, it is very shocking that these illegal units are flourishing and functional here 24X7!

Here I will have to especially mention the plywood and sawmill units situated right in the midst of Rajendra Nagar, in a spot known as Maula-ka-Taqiya (meaning a graveyard). Surrounded on three sides by residential buildings and schools, and Aishbagh flyover on the fourth side, it is well nestled and spiraling death and disaster day and night, at an abnormal rate! It is not possible for such units to function at such a death pace without ‘powerful patronage’ and a good deal of outsourcing. Its modest ‘sawmill’ opening at the Rajendra Nagar crossing is like the tip of an iceberg and one would be shocked to discover the chunk of land this illegal factory has swallowed – one that needed to be developed into a park for the colony that has none. The life-threatening sawdust coats the walls and lungs of the locals while the toxic smoke destroys even a ray of hope for a healthy living. This, despite repeated media reports and alerts! Whenever, a journalist enquires about these ply and sawmill factories, the authorities concerned feign ignorance and hurriedly conduct a raid on some remote sawmill in Sarojini Nagar or Malihabad to show their commitment towards law and order! So, suggest you beholder of world’s largest democracy: What can be a solution to this problem!

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