M A I N   N E W S

Pull of land of Scotch irresistible for MLAs
Jangveer Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 10
The pull of the land of Scotch whiskey is very potent or so it may seem for the Punjab Vidhan Sabha legislators. A committee of the legislators left for a study trip to Scotland today unmindful of the fact that they had been refused advance money by the Finance Department and that the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) does not support the basis of their trip.

The plan to study Scotch whiskey manufacturing processes in Scotland emerged after the finalisation of a report by the Pollution Control Committee (PCC) of the state assembly. The report, which is expected to be presented in the House in the coming monsoon session, but was made public last month, claimed that a 30-km area around four major distilleries in the state had become highly polluted and contained huge amounts of alcohol.

The PCC committee which includes Tikshan Sud and Amarjit Singh Sahi from the BJP, Virsa Singh Valtoha, Balbir Singh Baht and Jagdeep Nakai from the SAD and Kewal Dhillon from the Congress, left for London today. Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon, who is the Chairman of the committee, is already abroad and will join them there as will other committee members, including Anil Joshi (BJP). One technical hand -- an Executive Engineer of the Pollution Control Board, who is associated with the committee, is also travelling with the team to Scotland.

According to a Finance Department official, the PCC had approached it for the release of an advance for the Scotland trip but it was declined. The official said the committee was told to utilise money lying under its travel head for the trip. Vidhan Sabha committee meetings in the past have been held in places like Shimla, Srinagar, Goa and even Anadaman and Nicobar islands.

The Finance Department is not the only one to rebuff the committee. The PPCB maintains that the “startling” findings of the Assembly pollution committee are not borne out by facts. PPCB Secretary Babu Lal said the board had taken ground water samples from near each of the four distilleries in the state and that the samples were neither polluted nor contained any alcohol content.

The PPCB Secretary said the PCC report was “shocking” as in no part of the state was ground water polluted around a 30-km radius of any distillery as claimed by it. He said during recent checks it was revealed that only at the distillery in Hameera was ground water polluted in the distillery premises. When questioned, he said the PPCB had not been associated with the trip though one of its officers who had been taken on the committee was also accompanying the team.

Meanwhile, Kheti Virasat Mission head Umendra Dutt, who has studied pollution patterns in Punjab, said all relevant information needed was available on the Internet or could be taken from experts, many of whom were available in the state. “If anyone has to see the processes in Scotland, let a two-member technical team go,” he said, adding that he failed to understand what such a large team of non-technical persons would recommend upon its return.