November 30: It was pyrotechnics, Pilbhit style. Environmentalist and MP Maneka Gandhi's visit to the Rotary Club of Dombivli Midtown had everyone scurrying for cover, as she launched a loaded attack on policy makers, parliamentarians, seminar organisers and ``all those who make a big show of environmental conservation without even understanding what they are saying.''Organisers of the NGO Vasundhara probably got more than they had bargained for. Gandhi voiced her primary plaint: that while the `fashionably green' were merely interested in planting trees, it was more important to achieve a balance between progress and its developmental costs.``Organising such conferences cannot amount to anything by itself if we do not follow it up with action,'' she said, adding that New Delhi had hosted 17,000 such conferences last year. ``The result of this heavy expenditure merely elevated Delhi's status as the most polluted city in the world from number four to number two.''She was also scathing in her attack on both state tourism minister Jagannath Patil and KDMC mayor Sharayu Pradhan for their disinterest in ``an issue which is so close to people's hearts'' after they left soon after making their perfunctory appearances.Earlier, Patil had, in his speech, asked to be relieved immediately ``owing to a pressing engagement elsewhere.'' And Pradhan asked Gandhi whether she had any solutions for the increasing stray dog menace, since she was ``a specialist in stray dogs'', much to everyone's amusement.Palpably impatient with the excessive formality, where detailed introductions by both the compere Dr Ulhas Kolhatkar and other persons would precede every speaker, Gandhi lost no time in getting back at Pradhan for her ``antagonism to dogs''. She narrated the foolishness of the then Surat municipal commissioner who had ordered the total killing of strays. ``"The dogs have a big role in keeping rats at bay. Look what happened in Surat when the dogs were quelled,'' she pointed out.She also told of how 11 trees are felled for every cigarette packet manufactured. ``First we grow tobacco in the alluvial areas of Andhra Pradesh and southern Maharashtra instead of food crops.Since the crop requires more water, we want dams for which we have taken loans of over Rs 78,000. "Then we use precious wood from the forests to burn and cure the tobacco, and then we use up a lot more wood for paper to roll out cigarettes and packaging.'' 15,000 acres of forest land is deforested for providing matches for smokers alone, she said, asking, ``Why should my hard-earned tax money be used to subsidise these people when they go seeking cancer treatment?''
