Majority of urbanites unaware of environmental policies: Survey

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Raising questions on the awareness programmes related to environment, a survey conducted by The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri) shows that majority of people are unaware about the policies on air and water pollution, water availability, waste management, forest conservation and climate change in Indian cities.

The Environment Survey 2013 was conducted in six cities -- Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai. Delhi showed dismal performance in terms of awareness in all domains of environment with 70 - 80% of the respondents being unaware of policies.

Respondents from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai felt that the policies on climate change are either inadequate or not well implemented while in Chennai 42% of the respondents were not aware of policies related to climate change.

The total sample of 4039 was divided as a proportion of the total population of the six cities with 401 from Bengaluru, 431 Chennai, 1114 Delhi, 379 Hyderabad, 704 Kolkata and 1010 Mumbai.

When asked to choose between environment protection and development, 30% of the respondents from Chennai prioritised environment protection, while an equal number of respondents said that protection and development should go hand in hand.

About 59% respondents from Delhi and 34% from Mumbai also agreed with the latter. Nearly 65% respondents from Kolkata felt that environment protection should be given priority.

However, 85% of the respondents from Hyderabad felt that environment protection and development should be treated differently, with almost 50% giving priority to development.

Other aspects like air quality, water quality, forest and green cover, climate change, waste and waste management were also given prominence in the study.