By Sushant Patil
Let’s go a few months back at COP26 Glasgow Climate Change Conference where India and China were skeptical about usage of coal and now to 1st Feb the Indian Budget 2022 manifests ecofriendly measures to ensure a green future. Is the budget well stating this year? Does it really promise for a better tomorrow? How long will it take to make a significant change in the current air quality? Well let’s find out.
Budget 2022 was exhilarating! Everyone was looking forward to it to know that; Is there any relief on taxation for the common man? What is India’s stand on crypto currency? And so on. Few were pleased and few were disappointed but the reform that took place in this budget which was the need of the time to protect our mother earth although some baby steps but better than being sluggish. Here are the key elements which were affirmed in the budget 2022 for a pollution free India.
Green Bonds
What are green bonds? let us understand what are these bonds. Well Bonds are the dept instruments where a investor lends money to a organization or government in return of a fixed return and the money loaned by the investors is used for various projects and activities. So during this budget Green Bonds were introduced in order to support the manufacturing of renewable energy generating resources specially solar panels ,aiming the target of 280GW of power generation capacity through solar by 2030.
Battery Swapping Policy
EV (Electric Vehicle) motor is one of the significant solutions for air pollution free environment and to boost the adaptation of EV’s Battery Swapping Policy is introduced. This policy kills the anxiety of the EV-motor drivers for getting battery drowned in the middle of nowhere. The policy is self-explanatory, In short now you can swap your discharged battery to a fully charged battery available at the charging stations. Through this policy government is planning to encourage the private companies to set up charging stations at a scale with ample resources like land, infrastructure etc.
Chemical Free Farming
India is an agriculture based country and every budget brings few promises to farmers. And this budget brings a long-term vision reform I.e. Chemical free farming. Farmers are dosing an excess amount of chemicals into the farm lands in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to boost the yield but there are some adverse effects on the environment. Fertilizers consists of substances and chemicals like Methane, Carbon dioxide, Ammonia, Nitrogen etc., The emission of which has contributed to a great extend to the greenhouse gases, Water bodies surrounded these farms undergoes Eutrophication (Water bodies getting overdosed by one or two minerals creating imbalance in the aquatic environment. ) which jeopardy the aquatic life. Sensing these risk government is endorsing chemical free farming. Government has promised to start its first stage at the lands in 5km wide corridors along the river Ganga.
The Budget has also cut down subsidy allocation on fertilizers by 25% lower than previous year, from 1,40,122 crore last year to 1,05,222 crore this year. To acknowledge the air pollution caused by the stubble burning in the farm lands, the budget provides support of enable 5-7% co-firing of biomass pellets in coal based thermal powerplants.
Let’s hope that these reforms are delivered from paper to reality.
Thankyou Author, for putting all the necessary points in precise and enabling the understanding of Budget 2022 benefits to the environment.
The blog is really true …so keep going on , bit of efforts required