Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday pointed out that the national capital suffers every year due to situations arising of the stubble burning and called for finding a systemic solution to tackle it.

Addressing the National Energy Conservation Day Function 2024 at Vigyan Bhawan, he said, “The national capital suffers every year on account of hazardous environmental situations arising out of burning stubble. We must get into innovation mode, find a systemic solution, it should not be left to individuals.”

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Noting that our lack of attention and negligence is putting us in jeopardy in several ways, Dhankhar said, “One, our health. Second, loss of hours of work and third, disruption of normal life.”

Referring to the air pollution issue in the national capital, the VP said, “We need to take care of our children. We are giving them a heavy dose. You can’t go to school on this day because pollution is very high and therefore everyone must converge to contribute.”

Calling climate change a crisis, he said the threatening problem obliterates social barriers.

“Rich or poor, urban or rural. We either act together or we perish together,” Dhankhar said.

Mentioning civilizational ethos and traditional wisdom, he said, “ Our civilisational wisdom is a heritage, and I would say, in a sense, survival manual, encyclopaedic, for this climate emergency. We have civilisational ethos of thousands of years, our Vedas, Puranas, our epics Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Gita’s wisdom, if we look into that gold mine, we get real inspiration that conservation had always been a key factor, a facet of life.”

Drawing attention to the fundamental duty in the Constitution calling for conservation of environment, he said, “the Constitution has given us fundamental rights, but also fundamental duties. When there is a challenge in the family, in society, in a group, or before the nation, we relegate our rights and give precedence to duties.”

“I invite your attention in particular to Article 51A (fundamental duties). It is just not constitutional guidance. It has to be a way of life with us,” he said.

Underlining the importance of responsible consumption, the VP said our fiscal strength, fiduciary power, cannot be a determining factor for utilisation of natural resources and energy.

“If people think I can afford it, I want them to revisit their thoughts. This is not yours.It is a collective to the entire humanity and therefore, an obligation on us that there has to be optimal utilisation of resources, optimal utilisation of energy,” he added.