Letters

The goddess and the grain bank

The Academy of Development Science's efforts in starting a grain bank in the Karjat Tribal Block (February 15, 1994) are indeed laudable and should be systematically replicated.

The village deity of Chhitkul in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh has her own treasury of cash and grain and 30 bighas of cultivable land is cropped on her behalf. Half of this land and its produce goes to the priest and temple musicians. The rest of the land is cultivated by the villagers, the entire produce coming to the goddess. In times of scarcity, loans are advanced at the rate of 12 per cent per annum. All expenses incurred on worship come from the goddess' treasury.

Thus the goddess may be said to be progressive in her outlook: helping in distress at an interest rate lower than that of commercial banks. And without bothering the borrower. ...

Save Vedaranyam Swamp

RAMPANT industrialisation in Vedaranyam in Tamil Nadu is endangering the region's eco-system. An ideal shallow water eco-system, the Great Vedaranyam Swamp is home to many bird and animal species. Situated in the Nagapattinam Quaide-e-Milleth district of Tamil Nadu, the swamp also includes the Point Calimere Wildlife and Bird Sanctuary that extends over 33,330 ha encompassing 9,000 ha of tropical dry evergreen and mangrove forests.

This swamp is now threatened by a salt plant to be set up by the Southern Petrochemical Industries Corporation (SPIC). The state government had permitted Chemplast to set up a salt unit 20 years ago. The unit discharges chemical effluents.

The new proposal goes against the Environment Protection Act, 1990, which contains a provision not to disturb any area within 19 km of a reserve forest, 25 km of a sanctuary, or 1 km of the high tide level of the sea. The proposed plant lies within the core area-well within 200 meters of the high tide-and thus could wreak havoc, says the Bombay Natural History Society.

Save the Vedaranyam swamp from industrialisation. ...

Faulty Review

Your magazine has maintained a certain standard in its features and columns. But your review of the book The New Japanese Pesticide CARTAP (A masquerade -- Down to Earth, January 31) is uncharacteristically lop-sided and damaging to India's interests.

CARTAP came to India in 1988 with its Japanese manufacturer claiming that the pesticide has almost no effect on fishes and other non-target organisms. This claim has helped in pushing the product through Indian markets, despite high costs.

When the authors Abbassi and Krishnan began their examination of the claims, there was almost no data on CARTAP's toxicity. Using the fish Tilapia as their model, the authors have established the pesticide's toxic effects on it through extensive long-term studies.

The authors need not have spent more time and money studying a larger variety of organisms to get the same obvious answer. Nor was there any meaning in describing CARTAP's chemistry and technology -- as suggested by the reviewer -- because the book focusses on CARTAP's toxicity and not its production. The tenor of the review would have been more understandable had it been written by CARTAP's manufacturers!

To all others, the book in question would appear an honest and bold attempt, made not a day too soon. It has given us hard evidence and it is now up to us to urge the licensing authorities to review their stand on CARTAP before more damage is done. ...

Slip-up

The statement "NRSA satellites indicate the extent of wastelands in the country is 100 million ha..." in your news item Wastelands: Development Dilemmas (November 15, 1993) is incorrect. The National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA) has carried out wasteland mapping using satellite data in two different scales of mapping in two different time periods. Using 1980-82 data sets, 1:1 million scale mapping was done. The work was completed in 1985. This estimated the total wastelands in the country at 53.3 million ha (16.2 per cent of total geographical area). Subsequently, in 1986, mapping of wastelands was taken up on a 1:50,000 scale. So far, four phases of mapping covering 237 districts have been completed and the wasteland area is reportedly about 35 million ha, which accounts for 60 per cent of total area of the country....

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