The Hindu : Development must be in harmony with nature, says Mohanakrishnan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 17, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Development must be in harmony with nature, says Mohanakrishnan

By Our Staff Reporter

Thanjavur Feb. 16. A. Mohanakrishnan, Adviser to Government (Water Resources) and Chairman, Cauvery Technical cell Government of Tamil Nadu, today called for development in harmony and not in conflict with nature.

Population increase, development works and industrialisation led to pollution of rivers such as the Cauvery, the only major river Tamil Nadu can boast of. Pollution became a concomitant of industrialisation and development.

He was inaugurating an Indo-German workshop on research perspective of environmental protection, watershed management, civil engineering and landscape design of the Cauvery River Basin in the Periyar Maniammai College of Technology for Women at Vallam, near here.

K. Veeramani, president, Periyar Maniammai Institute of Technology, said pollution caused by dyeing factories in the upper reaches of the Cauvery and immersion of Vinayaka idols painted with corrosive chemicals in the river in September continued unabated. Again, extensive cultivation of paddy and sugarcane in the flat regions of the Cauvery basin let in fertilizer and pesticide waste. ``We have to devise strategies to produce food without polluting water as well as land in the Cauvery basin.''

Ing J. Guldenfennig, chair of Mechanics and Building Constructions, RWTH Aachen University, Germany, and R. Sivakumar, head, NSDMS and NSDI division, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, spoke.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu