| Do you want to make Kalimpong as polluted as Dehradun? Never. But
the truth is this small hill station is headed the Dehradun way. It was in the early 1940s that Kalimpong first saw
a car, but 60 years later the population of vehicles must be already past 60,000 (though
it is just a commonman’s estimate). Elders
recall that just a decade ago, there used to be only Willys Jeeps and very old Landrovers
plying in the winding, narrow roads of the town. Now
we have innumerable Marutis, santros, Matiz…also. Everybody wants a car, but does
everybody want to breathe the gases they emit as they trudge along the steep roads
carrying more passengers than they can actually accommodate?  With an increase in human population,
the number of cars is also going up, especially that of Maruti vans that ply as taxis in
the towns or between towns in the entire district. Main
road has now become Van road. But this is a sad, sad story.
As GT reporters found out, many youths with no other source of survival have turned
to buying second-had cars from far-flung places like Delhi and Calcutta. They but it cheap and ply these vehicles in
Kalimpong to earn a living. It is indeed sad
that no one understands that the lives of the people living in this pristine environment
are not so cheap. These vehicles and other
old Jeeps, Landrovers and Commanders are polluting the clean air that the people had been
breathing so far. We are now inhaling air
full of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and benzene are just a few. How long will we live if we continue to breathe
them?
Then there is traffic congestion, which adds to the smoke in air. To top it all, as if blind to what is happening
ahead, taxi drivers continue honking. It
hurts my ears, doesn’t it but hurt yours?
|
A
Down To Earth Supplement
