Geo-Environmental Impact of Brick Industry in Jirania Sub-Division,West Tripura, India

Brick kiln constitutes a major part of the industrial economic activity at Jirania Sub division inWestTripura District. Most of the brick kiln industries in the study area were constructed in recentdecades but they used the traditional method of brick making which was very labour-intensive aswell as environmentally degrading. Mud, sand, water and fuel (coal, fire wood, rice husk) are themain raw materials. They collect mud from the local agricultural land, tilla land and sand iscollected from the Haora river bed. Coal has been mainly imported from Meghalaya region. Brickkiln Industry playing a leading role to produce particulate matter and toxic gaseous emissions andit adversely affects on air quality. Those polluted substance can cause both short term and long termeffects on the health of Brick worker as well as the local people at the surrounding area. Somemethodology has been adopted for understand the nature of environmental degradation process.The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of these brick fields in terms of Air pollution,Soil degradation, water consumption and obstruction of the Haora river course and its tributaries.The input thematic map was prepared on the base of satellite data and a field survey.