Environmental Awareness Policies and its Effectiveness

Abstract

Environment protection programmes and legislations are meaningless as long as the victims of pollution are denied participation in the process of implementation of the law. Larger public participation can go a long way in dealing with environmental management problems. However, information dissemination is crucial in order to generate capability in the citizens to enable such participation. The present study focuses on environmental awareness policies and its effectiveness in Ludhiana. The article is structured into four sections. In the first section, the article briefly focuses on the need and significance of people’s awareness and participation for environmental protection, followed by methodological issues in the study. The second section provides the case study of efforts initiated by the state government for creating environmental awareness and identifies gaps in policy initiatives. The third section analyzes the level of general public’s awareness and participation in the environmental protection in Ludhiana city. For doing this, the study focuses on the perceptions of the local communities regarding environmental degradation and strategies adopted for the protection of the environment in their city. Finally, the article presents a summary of the main observations of the study and suggests measures for effective people’s participation in environment protection.