Vizag Rambler

 Attended a Workshop of the Takshashila Institute Bangalore in the 3rd week of March. The purpose was to get groups of students in the Advanced Public Policy 40th Cohort to mull over the challenges of Public policy and how to analyse data and present it in a convincing way to the Government. The groups were given the topic of AI diffusion, a very current topic, and how its implementation could impact jobs and what could be the policy directives to take on the matter and advise the PMO on the same. The need to have a problem statement, evidences and criteria to evaluate the problem and the possible solutions forced one to look our for and read the literature on the subject-with the caveat that everything published may not be gospel truth but only a version of the author - and hence a need to analyse the authenticy of the data itself. We followed Bardach's  8 fold path for Problem solving Takshashila itself has set out Eight likely actions that the Govt can take viz.   ...

  It is a sorry state of affairs that the agency required to monitor the Air is itself shirking its responsibilities and actually misreporting the data. The use of manual Air pollution monitoring equipment gives these bureaucrats the power present data which is not too harsh to their political bosses without as much as a thought to the health of the citizens. Our right to know the quality of air in the city cannot be trampled on by the Pollution control boards. GVCF s letter on the matter is in the right direction but will it wake up the authorities. Does the NGT have to step into every issue to rap the administration on their incompetence?

  It is important that Citizens take up with the authorities the failure of the Pollution Control Board to do their duty. The continuing rise in pollution levels is causing a lot of pulmonary diseases. Wake up Vizagites!!  Extracts fromDeccan Chronicle Article Dt. 24 November 2023  https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/241123/appcb-fails-to-check-pollution-in-vizag-officials-say-regional-branch.html The APPCB Vizag branch's regional office has the job of Controlling pollution in Visakhapatnam and Anakapalle.  Visakhapatnam has seven large-scale industries. Hindustan Shipyard; Hindustan Petroleum Corporation,  Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd, Simhadri thermal power project, Bharat heavy plate and vessels ltd, National mineral development corporation, Ferro scrap nigam ltd. All these seven industries emit lots of atmospheric and other pollutants. Anakapalle district’s Atchutapuram mandal has several industries that contribute to the region’s pollution bul...