The Nilgiri Documentation Center (NDC) has praised the district administration and the Collector, Innocent Divya’s efforts to curb the use of earth diggers and excavators as well as plastics.
In a press release, Venugopal Dharmalingam, honorary director of the NDC, said that after many decades, the Nilgiris celebrated a “Diwali in natural silence”, thanks to the ban on the use of earth movers.
“It is said it takes some 200 years for an inch of soil to be formed by nature. The earth diggers have been gouging out several feet of precious soil in no time unmindful of the consequences.” He said the ban on paper and plastic cups had come at the right time.
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Though it was bound to impact the users and traders for a while, the ban will have positive consequences for the Nilgiris in the long run, he said, calling on the administration to encourage traders to use alternatives to plastic cups.
“The district administration deserves all praise for taking these strong but unpopular measures to check the widespread degradation of the hills,” he said, adding that it was necessary to impose other drastic measures to protect the Nilgiris, like making all public parking within the town limits to be turned into paid parking spaces and also introducing pollution and tourist taxes.