Maharashtra HSC Env Ed & Water Security case studies
Maharashtra HSC Env Ed & Water Security · Put your knowledge to work in context.
Environmental Education and Water Security is a subject in the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education (MSBSHSE) Higher Secondary Certificate (Std XII) curriculum. It is a compulsory, awareness-oriented paper rather than a competitive entrance test: it exists to make school-leavers literate about ecosystems, resource use, pollution, and - the distinctive Maharashtra thread - how the state manages its rivers, dams, groundwater, and watersheds. The Maharashtra HSC Env Ed & Water Security case studies are 6 cases and about 5,123 words.
1Wetland or wasteland: a 12-hectare patch and a 10 MLD sewage plant
The gram panchayat of a peri-urban village 8 km from a district town must give a no-objection certificate for expanding a 3 MLD sewage treatment plant to 10 MLD on the same 12-hectare patch. The patch floods to a depth of 40-80 cm for about four months a year and holds standing water into February in wet years; revenue records list it as gairan, grazing waste.
833 words, about 4 min2Distillery spent wash, a February fish kill, and 24 villages on the river
A sugar factory in a drought-prone taluka runs a 45 kilolitre-per-day distillery alongside a 2,500 tonne-per-day crushing plant. Its consent to operate from the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board is for 45 kLPD, but through the 110-day season the distillery runs at about 60 kLPD.
859 words, about 4 min3Eleven million litres, 38 per cent losses, and 240 tankers a day
Ward 14 of a municipal corporation has 1.2 lakh residents. At the design norm of 135 litres per capita per day the ward needs about 16 MLD, but it receives 11 MLD, delivered from a reservoir 22 km away on alternate days for about 45 minutes, at a pressure that reaches only ground-floor taps in the higher lanes.
843 words, about 4 min4Forty check dams, 220 hectares of sugarcane, and four villages with dry wells
A 4,200-hectare watershed in a 550 mm rainfall taluka of Marathwada was treated between 2010 and 2014 with 40 loose-boulder check dams, 18 farm ponds and contour trenching, at a cost of Rs 6.2 crore. Between 2015 and 2023, dug wells in the upper two villages rose by 3.5 m, and 220 hectares shifted to sugarcane and banana, mostly on drip.
850 words, about 4 min5A reclaimed lake, a 1988 drain, and two floods in four years
Ward 7 of a city of 1.1 million lies on the left bank of a river and flooded in 2019 and again in 2022. Both events exceeded 140 mm of rain in 24 hours; the storm-water drain was designed in 1988 for 100 mm in 24 hours.
838 words, about 4 min6The panchayat NOC, a red-category unit, and a signature that travels
A gram panchayat in a taluka with a protected forest boundary on two sides is asked for a no-objection certificate for a red-category unit proposing to make zinc oxide from scrap, on 1.2 hectares of private land abutting a seasonal stream. The panchayat's sarpanch is told the unit will employ 40 local people and that the NOC is a formality, since the consent to establish comes from the state pollution control board.
900 words, about 5 min