This is an unique venture given the fact that it is the first of its kind. Undertaken jointly by NATMO and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), it is scheduled to be completed by 2001. But why was such a project undertaken in the first place. Says Dr Prithvis Nag, director, NATMO, explainingthe raison d'etre of the move,``The recent concern for environment is due not only to natural phenomena but also to urban, industrial and technological factors. The country can no longer afford to treat environmental issues as seminar-circuit conversation.''

The project envisages two main sections - an environmental atlas of India and another atlas charting ecologically-sensitive zones and industrial sites. The first section, that will provide detailed data on land, population, climate, drainage and communication, will have 14 maps. The second section will have 25 maps, profiling forests, biosphere reserves, wetlands, polluted areas, flood and drought-prone areas, wastelands, monuments, heritage sites, tourist centres, and so on.

A third section will deal with the sources of pollution, whether it is vehicular in origin, or caused by the local population. It will also deal with water supply, sanitation, municipal solid waste generation, hazardous wastes, mines and minerals and fertilisers. A fourth willdelineate air and water quality across the country.

According to Dr Nag, the CPCB has been collecting data on many of these aspects, but ``no broad picture'' has emerged as yet. Yet he believes that the environmental altas, when completed, will offer ``new dimensions in planning and development''. Armed with the atlas, planners will be able to lay greater emphasis on "spatial rather than sectoral planning, which has been the norm since the time of P.C. Mahalanobis, the pioneering statistician and planner.''

There is also a fifth section of the project which envisages district-level maps, which will facilitate district-level planning. Says Dr Nag, ``This fits into the emphasis placed on local bodies like panchayats and municipalities in the 73rd the 74th amendments of the constitution.''

NATMO's scientists and field workers have so far covered most of the northern as well as southern states. The findings have often been surprising. For instance, when work on the project began one and a half years ago,there were only eight ``hot spots'' or ``critically polluted areas'' across the country. As work progressed, NATMO teams identified 22 of these. ``The number may go up by the time we complete our work,'' says Dr Nag.

NATMO, however, seems to suffer from several constraints. For one, the project work could have been completed earlier but for an acute shortage of manpower. Incredibly, for a project of such magnitude, NATMO has to depend on 20-odd field scientists. NATMO, which has its main office and three branches all of them in Calcutta was set up in 1956 as a follow-up on the National Atlas project done by the geography department of Calcutta University.

Jawaharlal Nehru is said to have been highly impressed with the work and decided to set up the institution in Calcutta. But it remained a rather obscure government unit all these years. The project, coming as it does at the turn of the new millennium, seems to have given it some relevance and encouragement.

It has been said that those who forgethistory and condemned to repeat it. In much the same way, those who forget the lessons of ecological disasters are condemned to suffer its consequences. Hopefully, atlases of the kind envisaged by NATMO would serve as a reminder that we need to put much needed correctives in place if future generations are to live with some degree of comfort, indeed if future generations are to live at all.