What’s The Silver Lining In COVID-19 Clouds?

Nowadays everybody’s day starts and ends with hearing “Corona” all over the world. We all are trying hard to contain this deadly coronavirus. Earlier people used to say that we could always learn something from every problem. It’s like ” every cloud has a silver lining”. And the most positive thing or learning during this time is that earth seems to be more cleaner or fresh than before. How can we ameliorate the problem of our environment and other basic chronic problems?

There are myriad of positive things which are pulling our attention amid this epidemic. Some are as follows–

1- Air quality

2- Ganga /Yamuna /Rivers

3- Swachh Bharat Mission

4- Health awareness

 

Air Quality

According to Weather Channel, India is home to 21 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities, but recently air pollution levels have started to drop. While complete Lockdown of India was framed to stop spread of Corona virus, but according to CNN it is having ancillary health benefit of clearing the air which was earlier choking the people. After the announcement of lockdown roads became vacant, factories stopped working, construction was put on hold and etc. The tops of buildings became visible and some locals told Reuters that they could now spot more stars than usual, even Himalayas became visible from Jalandhar. The levels of microscopic particulate matter (PM) 2.5, started to drop.

But the sad part of this reality is that it is a temporary relief and this will again go back to being bad again once this lockdown is over. Infact we can see the example of it now also like on 5th April, at 9:00 pm, Indian citizens responded to Prime Minister’s call to light candles and diyas from their balconies and terraces to show solidarity and fraternity but many people actually didn’t understood his real motive and started celebrating diwali by firing crackers and because of this the air quality got poor again.

Ganga River

Water scarcity has become a big problem now all over the world and it has the potential to wage World War 3 also. We all now depend on water purifiers for clean drinking water but it is also wasting some amount of water in this process.

Ganga river water has witnessed a significant improvement of around 40 to 50 per cent since lockdown. According to ANI, 1/10th of the pollution in ganga river comes from industries and as industries are shut, water quality has become better.

Swachh Bharat Mission

Our Prime Minister was fostering regularly to keep clean our nation by his initiative “Swachh Bharat Mission” which was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. SBM was a campaign to clean up the streets, roads and infrastructure of cities, towns, rural areas and etc. But we didn’t followed his campaign religiously and spoiled his dream of clean India. But now, during the lockdown, situation has changed and it is indirectly helping in achieving the objectives of Prime Minister’s Clean India campaign because now roads and street has become clean.

Health Awareness

This pandemic has created fear among people and thus making them more aware about basic sanitation and personal hygiene. It has also made Government to look into the lacunas present in health infrastructure of our country and take necessary steps. Thus health equipment’s were ordered by Government and more hospital beds were arranged which will eventually improve health industry of our country.It is also encouraging everyone to follow healthy diets and lifestyle in order to boost our body’s immunity.

From the above discussion it’s very evident that these results were not achieved because of our voluntarily contributions or hardwork rather because of us being inside home unwillingly to protect ourselves. This pandemic is actually a way of mother earth to clean itself because we as human beings were unable to fulfill our duty. But after the lockdown is over we would again make this earth and environment dirty and polluted by our irresponsible behaviour. Industries and roads couldn’t be kept shut for the whole year therefore we as citizens should start behaving responsibly in order to keep our surroundings clean. We need to stop spitting, throwing garbage and urinate on roads and throwing flowers and doing visarjan in river in the name of gods. We need to use minimum electricity and air conditioners. If we really consider ganga as our mother and Vayu as our god then we need to stop polluting river and air, otherwise our life could under go in excruciating pain. Every granular contribution made by a human towards conserving the environment will make a huge difference.