LIFE ENRICHMENT -- 11:

SELF-AUDIT TO MAKE THE NILGIRIS A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE IN

BY P S SUNDAR

In the emerging context of social media affording limelight for social service activities, a common claim is “We are making the Nilgiris a better place to live in”.

While this reflects the desire and need of all, for this to become a reality, we require an attitudinal change – enhancing our attitude to the altitude of the Blue Mountains, the district we are blessed to live in.

The biggest challenge comes from not only corrupt politicians and bureaucrats but even us, the people who, for selfish justifications, injure nature violating laws and logic.   Many times, while expecting others to abide by law, we miss to realise that those others see us as law violators causing irreparable damage to the ecology and environment of the Blue Mountains.

In my keynote address at the meetings of service clubs and people’s fora, I keep stressing, “Be the change you want to see...however small it be!”  I give many examples where we can be the change rather than asking others to change.  Just to kindle thought, I reiterate here a soul-searching introspection which I had raised in some fora asking ourselves some basic questions on a single matter, say buildings, “to make the Nilgiris a better place to live in”.    Some pertinent questions are:

1.  Am I living in a house or earning rental or other income from a building that is unauthorised construction, legally declared or not?

2.  Have I encroached in any way – road, footpath, drain, waterway, grass meadow, others’ lands etc?

3.  Have I indiscriminately felled trees, uprooted tea or other plantations, or liquidated natural mounts to construct building?

4.  Have I used materials in construction which can be injurious to the ecology of the Nilgiris?

5.  Have I constructed (or am I indirectly supporting by renting) a building without leaving vacant space on all sides, sometimes even intruding into the air space of the municipal/panchayat road or neighbours?

6.  Do I observe waste disposal norms including letting domestic wastes properly into municipal/panchayat drains and not letting septic wastes into public or other drains and the water on to the road or elsewhere?

7.  While raising building towards the sky, have I strengthened the foundation or have I just built stories on the age-old structure which can make the Nilgiris go the Uttarakhand disaster way?

8.  Have I kept my building away from the touching-reach of TNEB overhead cables?

9.  Do I have adequate rain water harvesting or storage facility?

10.  Do I dispose of the solid domestic wastes from my house by throwing on to the road, dumping in the vacant spot near the house or tossing on to the stream nearby?

11. Have I as lawyer, banker, financer, broker, contractor or engineer, keenly interested in promoting my business but promoted unauthorised constructions ignoring necessities to protect the ecology and environment of the Nilgiris?

Definitely, the indifference of the civic and other authorities has made our life difficult and, sometimes is forcing people to violate laws, but we need an attitudinal change in ourselves to start to stop our violations “to make the Nilgiris a better place to live in”. 

A self-audit and wilful stoppage of law violations through attitudinal elevation can “make the Nilgiris a better place to live in”.  This is only about buildings.  There are many others.     Let us make the beginning at least now !

(article in The Nilgiri Rotarian, April 2015 issue).