Agra:
Several environmental groups in the Taj city on Monday observed Earth Day to highlight the ecological imbalances and threats to "mother Earth" through callous and unbridled profit-motivated industrialisation.
Speakers at a round table organised at the Goverdhan hotel by Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society stressed on sustainable development.
"We have to learn to live with the moods and rhythms of nature. The western growth model which promotes exploitation and conquest of nature, is proving suicidal and counter-productive," said environmentalist Shravan Kumar Singh.
Programmes were organised by a number of schools to create environmental awareness.
The city-based REDCO, an organisation of real estate promoters, in a memorandum to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav demanded immediate action on the long pending solar city project.
"The vast barren stretches in the ravines of Yamuna and Chambal could be profitably used for the solar city. We have to learn from the Gujarat experience," said REDCO president K.C. Jain, noting that solar parks in Gujarat were generating more than 850 MW power.
"If the solar park experiment was replicated here, Agra will have enough power to get over the continuing crisis," Jain told IANS.
The Agra solar park project, submitted in 2009, was cleared by the central government in October 2012.
REDCO also demanded review of restrictions on covered area for green buildings. "Also there was need to promote vertical growth so that agricultural land will be spared of acquisition proceedings," said Jain.