ENVIRONMENTAL               CONSIDERATION IN ENGINEERING             

                    

                                    Prof  Col Dr K Prabhakar Rao  .Veteran 

            Former Professor and principal of raja Mahendra college of Engineering 

                                              Ibrahim  patnam, Hyderabad 

                                

               Of late, the awareness of environmental effects on social and biological factors

Relating to human beings has been spreading greatly worldwide. For centuries, this aspect   was neglected, and the present generation, is already facing the adverse effects of the fore fathers towards the environment and the future generations would curse us for our failings towards the environment.

             Environment can be defined as the total of all social, technological, biological, physical and chemical elements that compose our surroundings. Physical environment gives various resources for mass survival. Enterprises operate within and interact with it the environment and  provides the living beings, such as food, energy, water, materials, land for sustaining life and for producing goods. The environment also acts a receiver for waste disposal.

              All business enterprises have different goals apart from making profits,. The goals are dependent on resources, social constraints, govt regulations and profits.  Basic goals of an enterprise are:

 

1 survival   

2.Long-term viability

3.Financial Viability

4.Conservation of resources

5.Pofitability  

6 Financial soundness to sustain

7 Growth

8.Capability of the enterprise to change and adjusting to changing needs of the society

9.Social responsibility

10.To promote harmony with the society around.

            

            The managers of the enterprises   have to carefully plan their strategies to conserve the resources, energy and materials for greater profitability and he has to ensure clean surroundings with harmless waste disposal methods. He has great responsibility towards the society. An enterprise pursues its goal with the permission from the Govt and society and it has to operate within certain laws and regulations. At present, the enforcement of the law is weak everywhere. But, it does not give the managers of the enterprises to pollute the environment as they feel like. The longevity of the environment depends on our attitude towards the surroundings. India is rather a chaotic and complex country and is highly overcrowded. It has innumerable problems like religious, social staring at us. As a matter of fact, the attitude of business community is indifferent to the society and environment. The laws of the land are full of loopholes. Thus, defaulters escape without any punishment. Judicial process in the country is long drawn full ogf loop holes and  culprits escape easily from Law. Invariably long rope is given to culprits, Corrupted  society, helps  the offenders greatly to escape from the  law. As an example  the water resources in Hyderabad  city can be quoted. During the era of Nizam 7 there were  many reservoirs big and small in around the city of Hyderabad . To day they have disappeared due to land grabbing by land sharks    hand in glove   with officials of various departments  and real estate agents. Only handful lakes are left and they are also on the verge of extinction. Who is to be blamed? Thus, there is a greater need for education and understanding of environmental awareness in Indian context. Man has been playing with his surroundings in different ways  and mismanaging. The various issues can be summarized as under:

a. Air pollution in industries

b. Water pollution due to mixing of industrial wastes, Effluents, Sewage and oil spillage

c. Ground water pollution due to seepage of industrial effluents.

d. Land erosion due to deforestation for cultivation and road building

e. Nuclear explosions

f. Use of pecticides, chemicals in agriculture to destroy pests

g. Use of chemical based fertilizer in agriculture sector

h  Ground water depletion due to uncontrolled drilling of bore wells.

  i. Un controlled urbanization  without forward thinking  

 

               In Indian context, it has been observed that most of the industries have been developed very close to the populated cities. Secondly, even if the industries were located away from the cities, over a period of time, they have been surrounded by the colonies of the residents. Thus, the areas have been polluted in all aspects and there has been no way  out.  The Govt attitude, lack of rigid laws added fuel to the fire. The industrial belt of Patahncheu, Uppal Jeedimatla, Kate Dan near Hyderabad can be well quoted as a classic example apart from the Siris factory at LB Nagar near Hyderabad where ground water has been polluted to such an extent that there have been many instances where cattle died due to drinking water in these areas. The residents suffered due to respiratory ailments. The Siris factory had polluted colonies around to such an extent that the ground water   turned red in color and could be consumed by human beings or cattle. With great difficulty the company has been made to shift operations. But damage already occurred. The nallahs in jeedimatla and patahncheu carry effluents like chemical foam reaching Hussein sagar in city. With great difficulty, some control could be achieved by diverting nallahs to save Hussein sagar. These are only few examples to draw attention. The scenario would be same throughout India. All industrial towns are plagued by environmental pollution. The densely populated cities are also suffering due to automobile pollution. The vehicles emit dangerous compounds from their exhaust. These cause breathing problems to the people and the problem is growing day by day although efforts are made in all towns to control this problem by enforcing checking of vehicle engines.  A compulsory pollution free certificate has been introduced for vehicles.

 

               The Govt has greater role to play in this regard as it is the body for making laws and enforcing.  However, equally important is the requirement for educating the public specially the student community. Students of today are the citizens of tomorrow. Thus there is an immediate need for educating the students at various levels on this issue. The education should start at school level and must continue at college level too.  At Engineering Colleges, the study of pollution problems and the solutions must form detailed study in their curriculum. The engineers should foresee environmental influences on various design problems and initiate corrective actions before- hand instead of acting on adhoc way. This has to be a continuous process and there is no period of rest for any one.

 

 It is strongly recommended that the study of environmental pollution by human beings be included as a separate subject with one or two electives in the subjects at 3 rd or 4 Th year level. This would go a long way in preparing the nation in fighting the pollution problems and we can hope to see clean environment in future.