Stretching over an area of about 7,50,000 sq, km. from Ferozpur (in the west) to Sadiya (in the east) this region is the most densely populated part of the country. It is the hub of the economic activities of the country. Due to level topography and fertile soils agriculture has been the main activity of the people in this region. But industrialisation, urbanization, transport and communication, trade and commerce are not lagging behind.
This has put tremendous pressure on the ecology of the region. The original vegetal cover has almost been removed paving way for siltation of the riverbeds and devastating floods. Droughts and famines are not uncommon to the region. Cities are overcrowded and pollution is rampant.
Today Delhi, Kolkata, and Kanpur are amongst the polluted cities of the world. In these cities there are a sizeable number of slum dwellers who lead a miserable life. Even basic facilities of health and hygiene are not available in these slums. The condition of small and medium towns is still worse. Due to lack of proper paining these look like overgrown villages.
Rural areas of the plains are also facing a number of environmental problems. In recent years Green Revolution has encouraged farmers to use higher amount of chemical fertilisers, insecticides, pesticides and weedicides etc. which have led to the accumulation of hazardous chemicals in the soils and water bodies. Excessive canal irrigation is causing water logging, rise in the level of underground water and increase in salinization. Due to increasing population pressure the area under forests, groves, orchards and pastures is shrinking.
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In agriculture rich states like Punjab and Haryana the area under forests and groves has fallen down to less than 6 per cent. Here excessive withdrawal of underground water in some areas is going to create serious water crisis.
The problem is going to take a menacing trend when we find that most of the rivers of the plains are highly polluted and their waters are not fit for human use. Most of the factories located along the rivers hardly use pollution control devices. Similarly city silage is thrown into the rivers without treatment. Community bathing, burning the dead bodies near the river banks, throwing the carcasses into the rivers also add to the misery and make the job for cleaning the rivers very difficult.
The main cause of environmental degradation in this region is attributed to high density of population. Family planning programmes are not able to yield desired results and population is growing at a terrific rate. Hence population related problems like poverty, poor quality of life, low standard of living, mal-nutrition, disease, hunger, crimes; social tensions, riots etc. are very common. Eastern part of Uttar Pradesh and western part of Bihar constitute the most backward region of the country.