Kedarnath tragedy: MoS environment on verge of tears recalling how half his family survived

Minister of state for food and environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey was on the verge of tears when he recalled on Wednesday how he and half his family survived the Kedarnath flash flood tradegy in June 2013.Choubey, addressing a CIIs event on sustainability here, said he is not only seeing how climate change is impacting across the world but also has experienced himself and lost some of his family members in one of the worst natural disasters.


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 21-09-2022 17:03 IST | Created: 21-09-2022 16:33 IST
Kedarnath tragedy: MoS environment on verge of tears recalling how half his family survived
Ashwini Kumar Choubey (file photo) Image Credit: ANI
  • Country:
  • India

Minister of state for food and environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey was on the verge of tears when he recalled on Wednesday how he and half his family survived the Kedarnath flash flood tradegy in June 2013.

Choubey, addressing a CII's event on sustainability here, said he is not only seeing how climate change is impacting across the world but also has experienced himself and lost some of his family members in one of the worst natural disasters. The minister recalled the catastrophic flash flood occurred in the territory of Kedarnath shrine in Uttarakhand and said he was on a visit to the temple along with his family members.

''I lost and gained from that tragedy. I had to leave behind half the family members. For four days, we stayed in the sanctum of the temple without food and water...I have faced that disaster,'' he said.

''I don't know how God saved my third generation family members. 17 of us had gone to visit the temple but eight of them returned (safely). Myself, wife, two sons and daughters-in-law and two grandsons,'' he said in grief. Urging private sector players to take action to tackle the challenges of climate change, the minister said global warming is affecting the world and there is a need to protect the nature. ''We need to protect the five elements of nature: earth (pritvi), water (jala), fire (tejas), wind (vayu) and space (akasha). Human being and the entire universe is made of five elements,'' he said.

This realisation has set in and therefore the entire world is focusing on sustainable development, even from Paris agreement to Glasgow climate pact, he added. Food secretary Sudhanshu Pandey said climate change and sustainability are no longer the academic issues only and they are very much at our door step. ''They have given us enough wake-up calls and it is time to work together to deal with the issue which threatens the existence of mother earth,'' he said. The need of the hour is to pool together public and private resources to overcome the challenges of climate change and sustainability issues, he added.

The secretary said the government is preparing to set the target for 2047 on the occasion of 100 years of India's independence. ''Sustainability and mitigating impact of climate change is one of the priorities. All ministries are working together and one of the major elements of approach would be public-private partnerships,'' he said. According to the secretary, India fortunately handled the Covid crisis quite well notwithstanding the 4Fs -- food, fuel, fertiliser and finance -- that were driving the global inflation pretty high. During the pandemic, the food security became a bigger issue but India handled it well. For more than two years during the pandemic, India gave more than USD 100 billion food subsidy to 80 crore poor. Food is the fundamental requirement for the people. The government stepped in at the right time with food subsidy when the jobs were getting lost, the industry was getting closed and incomes were lost during the pandemic, he said.

''This has helped in the recovery of the economy,'' he added. Fertiliser is the same story, the secretary said, adding that without that, several countries in African and even in neighbouring countries are facing serious challenge of fertiliser supplies because of supply disruption and unavailability of some raw materials. But India dealt with that also very effectively and secured advanced supplies, he added. Asserting that India is very much focused on food security and dealing with this problem of sustainability, the secretary said the harvesting of kharif paddy has started and the procurement in north India will begin from next month.

''The estimates are our public procurement will be 4-5 per cent higher than the last year. It is roughly about over 50 million tonnes,'' he said. ITC chairman and managing director Sanjiv Puri outlined how global warming was posing challenges in different parts of the world, including India which has seen both floods and droughts threatening agriculture.

The whole facet of food security is getting critical amid the challenge to feed more with climate change fuelling inflationary trend, he said and stressed for urgent action.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Give Feedback