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prime concern: Pollution |
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prime concern: Pollution
IT may be the start of a good story for Ludhiana’s Budha Nullah, also known as the river of sorrows, and the end of misery for residents living downstream, with the initiation of the Rs 16-crore bioremediation project (commissioned by the Union Ministry of Environment) launched recently to clean the nullah. Probir Sinha of Green Technologies and head of the Budha Nullah Ecological and Economic Restoration (NEER) Project team says manual removal of solid waste at Jainpur village, 20 km downstream from Ludhiana, and mixing 70 tonnes of microbial culture under the project has already started yielding results. “Village residents call us up to say the nullah looks like a river now. Ripples, which are formed in water having oxygen, are visible. This is good news,” says Dr Sandeep Joshi from Shrishti Eco-Research Institute, Pune. He has put in 22 years to develop the technology and comes armed with the experience of cleaning rivers in Udaipur and Pune. It may be too early for the results to start showing, but Dr Joshi, popularly known as “Green Surgeon”, believes positive changes will be seen within two months. He claims the microbes (pseudomonas bacteria) will not only eat up sewage, but also remove constituents of industrial waste, including heavy metals and other chemicals being discharged by the industry into the nullah.
Green mission “If we are able to set up all five green bridges by the proposed March deadline, we will be able to use the treated waters for irrigation. For this, we will need the government to release the money immediately. I have already invested Rs 9 crore in the project and the government has to release Rs 3.5 crore as the first instalment. We will be able to achieve some success,” says Sinha. The team has been studying pollution levels in the nullah. “We have been testing the waters for the last two years and were shocked to find low levels of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) at different points in the nullah, which is an ecological mess. It is estimated about 15,000 hectare land can be irrigated by the nullah waters,” he says.
Toxic waters The nullah is a cause of serious health concerns for village residents living along its banks. Forty-year-old Harpreet Kaur of Gaunspur village shudders whenever her teenaged son complains of a stomachache. For her, the ache is reminiscent of a curse she has lived through. She has lost seven members of her family, one after the other, to chronic liver disease. A few days ago, Harpreet Kaur’s only surviving son, Prabhjot, a student of class IX, started complaining of stomachache. “I went running to doctors and got all his physiological and biochemistry tests done. After all, I have lost seven members of my family to this deadly disease. I cannot take a chance and let something happen to my only son,” says a worried Harpreet Kaur. This curse has been let loose on scores of village residents by the toxic nullah that flows into the Sutlej, carrying the city’s untreated industrial waste and sewage, and making the river nearly black at the confluence in Wallipur village. Over the years, the nullah has polluted and rendered unfit for consumption underground water of villages along its banks. “Liver disease claimed the life of my husband, Ajmer Singh, who was only 40 years old. His younger brother, who was 30, died a year later. Their sister, aged 25, also died soon after. As if the dance of death was not enough, my elder son consumed poison a few days ago,” she says. Her parents-in-law, her husband’s aunt and uncle also died of the same disease a few years ago. Harpreet Kaur is not alone to have suffered this misery. Like her, hundreds of residents of 168 villages dotting the nullah have lost a relative to kidney ailments and water-borne diseases. Wallipur village, where the nullah joins the Sutlej, has lost at least 25 residents to water-borne and kidney ailments over the past five years. Residents of Ludhiana and at least 40 villages in the district are forced to drink polluted water, exposing themselves to diseases like jaundice, cancer, kidney, skin and respiratory ailments. “Even the cattle in most of these villages have been rendered infertile,” says Ravinder Singh Salempuri, a village resident.
Treatment plants Bioremediation may not be the only solution to check the pollution levels in the nullah. Sewage treatment plants (STPs) and common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) should be set up on a large scale, says a scientist. “It is shocking to see black water being discharged out of treatment plants at Jamalpur and Bhattian Bet. Why did we have to spend so much money on the plants if bioremediation could help the nullah entirely? After all, the microbes can get rid of pollutants to a certain level only and not beyond that,” he says. The treatment plant at Bhattian Bet is equipped to treat only 111 MLD every day while the STP at Balloke can treat 152 MLD. The STP at Jamalpur can handle only 48 MLD of sewage. Municipal corporation officials say out of the earlier 10 disposals carrying domestic waste that were emptied into the nullah, eight have been closed and only two are discharging into it now.
Vidhan Sabha panel rap During a visit to Ludhiana on August 7-8, members of the Local Bodies Committee of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha headed by Mansa MLA Prem Mittal created a furore when the members inspected the treatment plants. They were horrified to find that the treatment motors had rusted, indicating that these had not been switched on at all and the untreated water was being discharged into the nullah. Balwinder Singh Bains, Ludhiana MLA and member of the committee, said while six motors were drawing water at the Bhattian Bet treatment plant, only two were actually treating it. The rest were simply emptying out untreated water. “I enquired about it from municipal corporation and sewerage board officials, but they could not give me a satisfactory reply,” he said. Also, in spite of the tall claims of department officials, the treatment plant at Tajpur road was non-functional. At Bhattian Bet, the generators could run only two motors out of 10 in the event of power failure. Moreover, the augmentation work was being done at a snail’s pace. “If we work like this, we will not be able to achieve much success. The state of affairs reflects our seriousness to handle a project like the nullah clean-up,” said Bains. The Vidhan Sabha committee pulled up the civic body officials, causing much embarrassment to Municipal Commissioner Rakesh Kumar Verma. Admitting to the lapses, the Commissioner said all was not okay with the functioning of the treatment plants. Intriguingly, the logbooks maintained by the contractors show that the motors of the treatment plants were being run on a regular basis.
Throwback to the ’70s Ludhiana city had woken up to the pollution in the nullah way back in 1970 when a cleaning campaign was launched. The Sutlej Action Plan was conceived in 1996 and it was decided that sewage treatment plants would be set up to prevent sewage from being directly discharged into the nullah. It took more than 10 years for the treatment plants to come up in Ludhiana. Yet, these plants are not sufficient to treat the entire waste generated in the city.
Who is to
blame? Municipal Corporation: It is held responsible for 95 per cent of the total waste discharged into the nullah, as per the pollution control board authorities. They say it is not only the question of nullah, but also of the 12 municipal committees discharging waste into the Sutlej. The civic body contributes the maximum to the pollution load of the river — a whopping 20,048 kg every day. As per official claims, Ludhiana generates 500 MLD sewage every day, but the three sewage treatment plants are equipped to treat only 211 MLD daily. The rest is emptied untreated into the nullah. The Municipal Commissioner claims that with the operation of the treatment plants and augmentation of capacity, the flow of sewage into the nullah has been curtailed to a large extent. “The bioremediation project is our biggest hope. We will install CCTV cameras at the STPs to ensure that the recycling motors work for the required time. We will maintain a strict vigil,” he says. Industry (a shutterstock pix here): Ludhiana’s hosiery, machine parts, electroplating, heat treatment, cycle manufacturing, dyeing units and chemical industry have been discharging effluents into the nullah for years. More than 20 sullage drains from colonies like Islam Gunj, New Madhopuri, Jamalpur, Gau Ghat Gaushala and Balmiki Mohalla flow into the nullah. The point at which the industrial effluent falls into the nullah at Jamalpur has to be seen to be believed. A tar-like liquid, emanating pungent smell and fumes, flows into the nullah.
What can be done While the bioremediation project has come as a ray of hope, zero discharge from the industry; complete treatment of sewage waste not only in Ludhiana city, but also villages along the nullah; washing out all toxics by flooding the drain; and banning the dumping of municipal solid waste can help clean up the nullah. The setting up of common effluent treatment plants for dyeing units, which is under process; augmentation of sewage treatment plants; and the bioremediation project will help it further. Sadly, politicians have often come to the rescue of polluters in the past. Though several notices of closure have been slapped on polluting industries and the power connections snapped, most of the times, the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) have to give in to pressure and withdraw the notices and restore power. While the effluent treatment plants are being set up at two places in the city to help revive the nullah, it remains to be seen when these would start functioning and to what effectiveness. “It is a sad state of affairs that it takes us ages to launch a project which is required to save the nullah immediately. The CETPs were conceived at least five years ago, when the government had constituted the P Ram Committee on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Even after so many years, we have not been able to ensure zero discharge,” MLA Bains says. The bioremediation project also remained stuck in technical glitches for more than a year. Probir Sinha says: “It took us time to take permission as well as no-objection certificates from the departments concerned. We have started it now,” he says.
What plagues the nullah
How it is being cleaned
Step 1: A four-member team works round the clock near Jainpur village bridge to segregate the solid waste manually. Step 2: A ‘green bridge’ has been constructed along the nullah near Jainpur village. Four more will come up by March. Step 3: 70 tonnes of microbes worth Rs 2 crore were released into the ‘green bridge’ on December 4. Microbes eat pollutants in the water passing through the bridge. Step 4: By March, filters will be installed at the five such bridges to reduce biochemical and chemical oxygen demand in the nullah and make the formation of ecological chain possible, which will reduce pollution.
A good start
Village residents call us up to say the nullah looks like a river now. Ripples, which are formed in water having oxygen, are visible. This is good
news.
Dr Sandeep Joshi, shrishti eco-research institute, pune
The clean-up drives 1970: The first nullah cleaning operation is launched by the then government. 1996: Sutlej Action Plan is launched. Under the plan, sewage can’t be discharged directly into the nullah. 2002: The Punjab State Human Rights Commission takes up the matter after reports appear in The Tribune on the plight of residents. 2006: The Punjab and Haryana High Court directs the Punjab Government to act; government constitutes a committee; Baba Jaspal Singh Baddowal launches ‘kar sewa’ with 5,000 followers. 2009: The Centre announces a grant of ~50 crore for cleaning up nullah, which the government claims it never got. 2010: The state government announces river green bridges system to clean the nullah within one-and-a-half years.
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