Indian needs national, state brick missions, and comprehensive legal framework that can transform brick sector by adopting cleaner technologies and creates formal employment opportunities. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - Financial Express
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 5 years
KEYPOINTS
Reasons for National, State brick missions
· For the past 20 years, the environment ministry has promoted utilisation of fly ash bricks by mandating manufacture of fly ash bricks within a certain distance of thermal power plants (TPPs).
· But there is not enough fly ash to meet the demand of the brick industry in Delhi-NCR.
· This variation in demand and supply in different parts of the country is the reason why a blanket approach to fly ash utilisation has failed so far.
· To address this, we should adopt a regional approach to fly ash regulation. That is, regulation should be tailored depending on the availability of fly ash and the demand for the material in a region.
· In general, regions with high fly ash availability should be mandated to produce more of their building materials from fly ash and vice versa.
· But, mandating the manufacture of fly ash bricks is not sufficient. There should also be demand for it, and can be created by putting in place demand-side regulations and by promoting use of fly ash bricks and other products.
· Demand-side regulations like mandating a certain percentage of building materials from fly ash in the building by-laws of cities could go a long way in increasing the utilisation of fly ash. But the most important thing required for generating demand is quality control and certification of fly ash products.
· If we need to promote utilisation of fly ash, we should promote a wide variety of fly ash products and not just bricks. For this, we need promotion and certification programmes to enhance the acceptability of fly ash products in the market.
· There has to be credible deterrence for non-compliance for TPPs. TPPs have flouted the fly ash notification for two decades because they know that the penalty is small.
· Any new law must increase the penalty for non-compliance and set up a transparent system for supply of fly ash to different users. A regional-level online portal for compliance assurance can be established to improve the enforcement of the law.
Technology to reduce pollution
· We can reduce pollution from brick kilns by using better technology. Currently, most Indian kilns use outdated tech such as clamps and fixed chimney bull’s trench kiln (FCBTK). These are highly inefficient and polluting and should be replaced with zigzag technology.
· It is clear that maximising fly ash utilisation and reducing the environmental impacts of fired clay bricks require much more than just a simple law that bans fired clay bricks.
Formal employment opportunities
· Brick sector is one of the breeding ground for child labour and informal employment.
· A comprehensive legal framework will enable not only the formalisation of workforce but also combating child labour in this industry.
· MGNREGA can also be linked with this sector to create employment opportunities in non-farm sector, thereby increasing labour productivity and simultaneously curbing seasonal unemployment.
SARI 5 years
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IAS Parliament 5 years
N.k 5 years
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Thanks
IAS Parliament 5 years
Try to include about matching demand and supply of flyash bricks in bricks sector, formalisation oif workforce. Keep Writing
