Environment does not bother Indian Youth!
Every year, June 5 is celebrated as World Environment Day, worldwide and also in most educational institutions and government organisations. However, this year it may get submerged with the Parliamentary Election results on June 4, 2024.
Despite all the hangama in the media about deteriorating environment, only around thirty percent of youth in India are bothered about such a situation. Half of youth do not foresee any problem on the environment of the country.
This is a key finding of an all-India Youth Expectation study undertaken by Centre for Media Studies (CMS), a well known research organisation. The study sample covers both urban and rural locations across 18 states representing all regions of India. More than 2000+ youth participated. A mix of face-to-face and telephonic survey was conducted among both male and female in the age group of 18 to 30 years. The study was conducted in April – May 2024, as the country was set for the general elections.
Less than 7% of youth, irrespective of male and female, spontaneously (on their own) identified ‘safeguarding environment’ as an issue among top of their concerns. However, on being specifically asked, almost 80% youth in this survey expect environment conservation to be a top priority of the new national government taking charge in coming days.
However, youth of India is not very optimistic, as almost one-third of them do not think environment or our climate would improve for the better in coming years. High proportion of youth (44%), both among female and male, do not feel that country is doing enough to protect nature and curb pollution.
This finding acquires significance as this response of the youth coincides with the Supreme Court’s criminal contempt accusation against Delhi Development Agency for cutting a large number of trees at a time when the nation’s Capital is described as the most polluted and is high on the global ranking of most polluted cities in the world.
Even after a decade of cleanliness drive in Mission mode (SBM), one out of every third youth in this survey opined that their neighbourhood is not clean, rather deteriorated as compared to earlier years.
This survey reminds the new Government next month a hard task that it need to pursue far more effectively than hitherto and involve youth of the country more convincingly of impending threats to the environment of the country
“Collective action” - and not holding government solely responsible, is the outlook of today’s youth on conserving natural resources and improving environment. Around 55% of the surveyed youth felt that it the responsibility of every citizen, community , and government to work on the same.
