What is the issue?
- Golden Temple, the holiest shrine for Sikhs in Amritsar, attracts approximately seven million tourists in a month.
- It is gold-plated and almost 430 years old.
- The increasing numbers of tourists, the widening tourism industry and poor waste management have become a serious threat to the temple.
- Amritsar has now been ranked among the 30 most polluted cities in the world in terms of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) levels in the air, as per WHO reports.
What are the problems?
- About 1.4 million Indians were killed by illnesses related to air pollution in 2013.
- The Management Committee Golden Temple (SGPC) has taken appropriate action to control the pollution generated from the kitchen.
- It has switched from burning wood or coal to cooking with gas and electric machines.
- But the government has done little to control the pollution caused by open construction or the burning of garbage on the narrow streets.
- The mixed waste from across the city is transported every day in garbage-lifting trolleys to Bhagtanwala, which is just a kilometer away from the Golden Temple.
- Around 600 metric tonnes of garbage is generated every day.
- It affects around 60,000 people in its neighborhood.
- The dumping site should be shifted and a waste treatment plant should be built.
- But it has been caught up among various political issues for more than five years now.
Category: Mains | GS-III | Environment
Source: The Diplomat
