Ludhiana, Punjab (April 16, 2014): Environmental issues have largely been ignored in the Lok Sabha election campaign in Punjab at a time when the adverse impact of water pollution on people’s health manifests in the significant increase in cancer deaths and incidences of water-borne diseases. None of the mainstream political parties have so far touched the issue in their speeches.
The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, provides that the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) should frame a comprehensive policy for the prevention, control or abatement of pollution in streams and wells and to secure the execution of the policy.
India’s Environmental Policy, 2006, also provides that each state government will formulate stricter environmental standards based on local considerations for addressing pollution-related issues.
But the PPCB has neither prepared the policy except for Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh nor formulated environmental standards based on local considerations.
The state government has not assessed the risks to human health from water-borne diseases. The number of cases of reported water-borne diseases have increased significantly (595 per cent) from 39,781 in 2008-2009 to 2,76,393 in 2012-2013. Nearly 40,000 people have died of cancer in the past five years.
According to The Tribune (TT): a “leaked” report of the CAG for the year ending March 2013, which is likely to be tabled in the state assembly in the coming Budget session, has noticed from the records of the PPCB that Budha Nullah in Ludhiana, the industrial hub of the state, is carrying about 550 million litre daily (MLD) of effluents to the Sutlej river, out of which 200 MLD is trade effluent, mainly from dyeing industries, and the rest is domestic sewage.
A perusal of records of the PPCB and the Industries Department have shown that two Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETP) were to be installed in Ludhiana on the Bahadurke road and Tajpur road for the treatment of effluent discharged by 243 medium and small dyeing industries with the capacity of 15 MLD (for 18 industries) and 117 MLD (for 225 industries), respectively.
The CETP on the Bahadurke road has started working from January, while the one on the Tajpur road has yet to be commissioned. Thus the harmful effluents of 225 dyeing industries are either being discharged into Budha Nullah or reaching the sewage-treatment plant in the Jamalpur area.
Under India’s Water Quality Monitoring Programme, the PPCB has observed that the quality of Sutlej water has degraded in the entire stretch from 2008 to 2013.
The CAG has pointed out that 1,022 industries were established without the PPCB nod from 2008 to 2013.