Ludhiana, August 28
Ten-year-old Mithia knows nothing about basic hygiene. Parked in a makeshift tenement along the banks of the Budda Nullah beyond Chand Cinema, he coughs incessantly.
One of the hundreds of children engaged in sifting “useful” waste from the junk that the Municipal Corporation discharges daily into the Nullah, Munna is weak and fragile. He looks pale, suffers from TB and anaemia and has been down with dysentery for as long as he can remember. His elder sister, also a rag picker, has similar symptoms – a legacy of families that live close to the Nullah.
Like other slum dwellers residing on banks of the Nullah, Munna has no access to potable water. He drinks from shallow hand pumps whose water resembles diluted sewage. But he has no choice. In the absence of MC’s water supply, he must drink what comes his way, notwithstanding the consequences.
A sizeable population from the city’s slums and villages has been consuming water from the hand pumps banned by the
MC. Municipal Corporation officials confirms the ban, adding: “Some old hand pumps still exist. But they’ll be dismantled.” A survey of the Budda Nullah stretch however confirms their presence in plenty. Only a few have been dismantled. The rest stay and pose the danger of cholera and hepatitis to those who use them. People have no alternative as the city depends solely on groundwater for potable purposes. Budda Nullah, the Central Ground Water Board confirms, has further polluted the groundwater.
Of late, another mode of groundwater contamination has come to light in Ludhiana. This one stems from the absence of public sewerage system in some industries. Their owners have dug tubewells in factory complexes and are discharging effluents directly into groundwater – a hazardous practice. For his part, MC Superintending Engineer (Operations and Maintenance) VP Singh admits that though drinking water is being supplied to 100 per cent areas
in recognised colonies, only 68 per cent have the sewerage facility. Wastewaters are entering Budda Nullah and infecting groundwater.
Another reason for groundwater pollution in Ludhiana is its shallow water table (just 30 feet), which remains vulnerable to pollutants. Dr G.S. Dhillon, a water resources expert admits: “Water table being shallow, pollutants don’t get filtered out as surface water seeps into the earth. Also, there’s not enough water for dilution of waste in the Nullah. After building the Bhakra Nangal canal system, the flow of water in the reaches below Ropar to Harike has been reduced to a trickle. The Nullah doesn’t recover through self-purification mechanism due to heavy pollution. There is also complete absence of dissolved oxygen throughout its stretch.”
No wonder the Punjab CM was shocked when residents of Muktsar recently showed him samples of polluted water from Harike, which provides drinking water to parts of Punjab and Rajasthan. CM’s anger forced the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to issue closure orders of 130 polluting electroplating and dyeing industries at Ludhiana. About 50 dyeing units on Tajpur Road along Budda Nullah were also targeted. Strangely, their samples have seldom been failed by the Board in the past.
But now the Board seems serious about enforcement. “Of the units ordered closed, 52 have installed Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs). Wastewater from 15 units will be re-inspected. We have given more time to some industrialists who met the CM recently,” says Tript Rajinder Bajwa, chairman, PPCB, which, until now, has utterly failed in its duty to enforce pollution control norms stringently or even assist industrialists in proper installation and operation of ETPs.
The results have been “hazardous”. Ludhiana’s groundwater has been polluted up to 1200 metres on the right side of Budda Nullah and up to 300 metres on its left, says a Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, study. Water turbidity (pollution) is 363.5 mg per litre as against the permissible 5 mg/litre; total hardness is 409 mg/litre against the accepted 200 mg/litre.
Statistics apart, water continues to be pumped for drinking purposes through tubewells (at about 80 points) and hand pumps. The situation is grim in industrial areas along the GT road where groundwater has traces of chrome used in electroplating. Residential areas are no better. Groundwater samples from Dashmesh Nagar, Janata Nagar and Haibowal have cyanides and hexavalent chromium in excessive proportions.
And that’s not about all.
