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Punjab’s poisoned water
This above all |
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TOUCHSTONE PROFILE: Anu Aga On record
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Punjab’s poisoned water
Ballala, a small village near Doraha in Ludhiana district, about 10 km off National Highway No. 1, chose All Fools Day this year to commission its water purification plant after repeated tests of subsoil water found it high in both organic and inorganic impurities. But this was no fooling matter. The village is about 30 km from the industrial town of Ludhiana, yet toxins in its water are not only above permissible levels, but also the same as the water in the industrial zones of the city. Tests indicate the total dissolved solids (TDS) in the water are almost double the prescribed limit of 800 ppm (parts per million). The pH value — an indicator of dissolved solids — too is much higher than normal. Bhupinder Singh, who looks after the water treatment plant run by the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewa Society, says people from 15 surrounding villages are now getting clean water from the plant. Ballala is not an isolated case of polluted subsoil water. The problem is widespread in Punjab. In fact, 49 per cent of the families in Punjab drink untreated water, which is rarely fit for humans, irrespective of the source — well, tubewell, handpump or pond. That makes them vulnerable to not only waterborne diseases, but also cancer. With thousands of gallons of chemically charged water seeping into the deep aquifers, the Punjab Government is locked in a grim struggle in discharging its social obligation of supplying “safe, pure drinking water” to its populace. Water drawn from shallow aquifers has generally been declared unfit for human consumption because of the high TDS and pH value. The mess is deep The Water Supply and Sanitation Department is supplying water to rural areas from deep-bore tubewells, but analysis of samples from such sources, too, has shown they are high in TDS. Tests across the state have found the presence of uranium, arsenic, fluorides and other chemicals in groundwater in quantities much higher than permissible. While the Malwa region — with its heavy use of farm chemicals — is hit the hardest, Doaba and Majha are only marginally better. In Ludhiana, the result is that even where water is supplied through pipes it is muddy and loaded with organic and inorganic impurities. Handpump, per se, has been discarded as a safe source of drinking water because it taps into shallow aquifers. Yet, in the border district of Gurdaspur, it continues to serve 48 per cent of the families. In Fatehgarh Sahib, close to Chandigarh, 41 per cent families drink water from tubewells, which too is heavy with chemicals. The organic pollution of water is equally responsible for making it unsafe. Around the end of last year and early this year, Nawanshahr was in the grip of a severe jaundice epidemic, with more than 600 cases reported despite piped water. Nawanshahr Deputy Commissioner Shruti Singh says orders have been given to activate chlorination systems on all tubewells supplying drinking water. Funds available with the Education Department will be used to install reverse osmosis filtration systems in government schools. However, most local bodies, including municipal corporations, committees and notified area committees, are in no condition financially or in terms of infrastructure to guarantee safe drinking water. Pouring poison The sources of pollution are for all to see. Around industrial areas, it is lack of treatment of effluents from factories, including dyeing, tanning, nickel and chrome plating units, besides distilleries. Such is the apathy of many industrial units in Ludhiana that instead of treating effluents, they inject it into the earth through deep-bore wells. Effluent treatment plants at some of the units are either dysfunctional or sparingly used in order to save costs. Industrialists also find disposal of the scum that is left behind in treatment plants difficult. Natural drains dump muck from cities into rivers and canals. For example, the Kalli Bein and Chitti Bein in Doaba drain into the Sutlej, Amritsar’s Ganda Nullah discharges its contents in the Ravi, while Ludhiana’s Buddha Nullah pollutes the Sutlej. A nullah in Patiala does that to the Ghaggar. Isolated attempts to clean these nullahs, such as the voluntary effort by Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal on the Kali Bein, are in the right spirit, but not able to achieve much as they do not have government support. In areas away from industrial clusters, it is the agricultural chemicals, such as pesticides and fertilisers, which seep into the earth and foul the groundwater, thus leaving no area in the state where untreated water may be safe for drinking. In small towns and villages, the local bodies do not have sewage treatment plants. All waste is thus discharged into natural water channels. Filtering it Chlorination and sedimentation-based water treatment plants only address organic and suspended particle pollution. The only system that can remove dissolved chemicals — of which almost no area in Punjab is free — is reverse osmosis, which is a very expensive proposition. In view of the cost, the government is making efforts in rural areas to install RO plants in the public-private sector to serve the bare drinking water needs. The experiment has shown good results in panchayats that have taken over the responsibility of running the plants and distributing the water. The panchayats charge nominal amounts from households for supplying 10-20 litres of water per day. Some panchayats, including the one in Chheharta, Amritsar, now even have some money saved. Under the Panchayati Raj system, they have been allowed to retain the funds collected and maintain the water plants. The money does not go to the government. The experiment, says Paramjit Singh Aujla, former Secretary of Water Supply and Sanitation, has been successful. However, even as the government has commissioned 1,885 RO systems, mostly in the Malwa belt, the rest of the state, including big cities like Ludhiana, continues to drink water with TDS levels far in excess. The department has set a target of supplying 70 litres of potable water per person in 15 years. Meanwhile, for 100 per cent coverage of urban areas with “quality water”, Local Bodies Minister Bhagat Chuni Lal says a two-year plan has been launched by his department at a cost of Rs 925 crore. A second instalment of Rs 350 crore for the project has been sanctioned. The first instalment was of Rs 306 crore. Virsa Singh Valtoha, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation, said: “At present, 81 per cent population of rural Punjab has been covered under the clean drinking water programme, and it would cover the remaining villages in the next one year. We have decided to install another 412 RO plants across the state.” His figures, however, do not add up, given that there are 12,000 villages in Punjab, nearly all affected by pollution.
ILL HEALTH ON TAP
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This above all
In the few months I spent in Shantiniketan, I learnt to play the sitar. I also learnt I would never make a professional sitarist. I also learnt to paint, but realised I would never make a professional painter. About the only plus point of my stay there was to befriend an attractive Parsi girl from Bombay.
To start with, it was largely due to the fact that neither of us could speak Bengali. I was besotted by her. When I returned to my college in Lahore, I started writing to her. I addressed her as Comrade, which in the lingo used at the time was a synonym of sweetheart. Our correspondence lasted a couple of years till she got married. Then she stopped answering my letters. Her name was Mehera Jussawalla. I kept a track of her movements for many years. Her son, Adil, now over 70 years old, is an Oxonian and lived in London till he returned to Bombay in 1970. He has been teaching English at St. Xavier’s College. He has already published two anthologies of his poems. His latest offering is “Trying to Say Goodbye” (Almost Island Books). His poems make good, thought-provoking matter. I give one example: I was raised to think I’m no pushover,/ But you see, I am./ All houses are fall guys./ The plans you, ay to set us up/ Touch our very foundations. Stranger, still looking for home,/ Who watched me for months,/ Pay attention:/ I am setting you free./ Your future’s got nothing to do with what’s happening to me./ Your universe was built to dance on a pin,/ Mine to stay still. Tell your guru/ Stillness did a house in. Learn balance with nothing to stand on./ Though you’ve lost heart, lost ground,/ Go rootless, homeless, but balance. Urine test “Three years ago, the ‘Toylet’ was just a pipe dream,” Horotaka Machida of the Sega game company told reporters in Tokyo. “But our urinal video games are now installed in bars around the country, encouraging men to take part in contests by varying the strength and direction of their urine. “Each urinal is fitted with a pressure sensor, and a screen is mounted above the unit. Games include ‘Graffiti Eraser’, where the user tries to erase virtual graffiti, and ‘Mannekin Pis’, which measures the volume of the user’s stream. Another is called ‘The North Wind and The Sun and Me’, where the strength of a urine stream determines how high a virtual girl’s skirt gets blown by a digital wind. And ‘Battle! Milk from Nose!’ pits the present user against his predecessor, with the power of each player’s urine stream forcing milk out of the nose of virtual contestants. “At first, we thought it would only be young people who would like the Toylet, but we’re seeing all people enjoying it, regardless of age”. (Courtesy: Private Eye, London) Tree lover’s eulogy
Some are like my grandfather,/ Sparsely leafed./ Some like my grandmother/ Who used to throw choori to the crows. Some trees are like the friends/ I used to kiss and embrace./ One is my beloved/ Sweet. Painful. There are trees I would like/ To throw on my shoulder playfully,/There are trees I would like/ To kiss and then die. The trees sway together/ When strong winds blow;/ I wish I could render/ Their verdant, leafy language. I wish that I could/ Return as a tree/ And if you wanted to listen to my song/ I would sing it in the trees. These trees are like my mother,/ May their shade stay intact. (Contributed by B.S.
Saini, Gurgaon).
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TOUCHSTONE IRA PANDE
A few weeks ago, writing on cartoons, I had never imagined that a mere cartoon could shake the very foundations of our democracy by seeking to circumscribe freedom of expression.
How long can we give in to the philistines and obscurantists who successfully exiled our most famous artist, banned books that hardly any of them had read, and who refused to allow one of our best-known writers to attend a literary festival? Naturally, having tasted blood, they now want to police every aspect of information from the Internet to school textbooks. The irony is that those who are the most vocal in these matters are barely literate themselves. The government’s craven knuckling to their bullying and filibustering will thus one day ensure that the content of education will have to pass the scrutiny of Parliament rather than of teachers. This seems like a good time to question the kind of public culture we have created in the 60 years of republican life. As one watched the telecast of the celebration held in a historic joint session of Parliament recently, the semiotics of this culture were there for all to see. Almost none of our worthy parliamentarians now wear a Gandhi topi, the proud symbol of nationalism as well of altruistic service. They may all still wear khadi, but this is somewhat dimmed by the designer shoes, watches, pens and expensive Blackberry mobile phones they all carry as proudly. Predictably, some of the younger ones were joking and laughing or fiddling with their phones while high-minded speeches were being made to commemorate the historic occasion. Let us now turn our attention to the dais for seating the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister and Speaker, which was gaily festooned with what looked like lollipops but were costly orchids flown from god knows where. One could be forgiven for thinking this was our Parliament’s ‘Heppy Budday’ party as one’s eyes took in a cute ‘60’ made of pink roses in that sea of lollipops. There are few interiors more impressive and hallowed than our Parliament. The wood panelled walls, the quaint upside-down fans, the teak benches covered in leather and the lofty ceiling need no decoration, so do we really need to gild the lily with such a vulgar display of horticultural excess?
But why single out just one function? Look at the Republic Day parade and its jingoistic display of military hardware. The best viewing spaces are reserved for the VIPs while the common man is given enclosures where no one can carry even a bottle of water. Only tinpot dictatorships in Communist countries now hold such parades. Why can we not have street parties where high and low, rich and poor can all share the celebrations as equals? For once, the gates of Parliament and Rashtrapati Bhavan should be thrown open so that the common man is given access to those hallowed precincts that most of them will never see. There should be open-air concerts, not private recitals to which only the high and mighty are invited. Our nervous security agencies have sealed off our representatives from the public so effectively that they have become like hothouse plants who cannot survive outside the controlled conditions they occupy. They never travel in ordinary trains, never ride public transport buses, never enter a bank to cash a cheque or stand in a queue for a tax refund. In mature democracies, the privileges of power are negligible: even cabinet ministers in Europe catch the tube to their office. One does not hear of ex-Prime Ministers and Presidents (forget mere Speakers) seeking eternal benefits such as free housing and transport. But here, we have to almost crowbar politicians and bureaucrats from their official residences when their term is over. Yet listen to them in Parliament, making impassioned speeches on the poor, the homeless and the hungry! But why blame them alone? No Indian I know will willingly stand in a queue, give up his place for an elder citizen or even cede right of way to a pedestrian. It is as if we are in a race to see how much we can seek for ourselves, without even pausing to think whether we can share what we have with those who have none. I do not know whether it is our schools or parents that will have to shoulder the responsibility of instilling some form of social consciousness, but we must do what we can to ensure that we do not pass on this indifference and callousness to another generation of Indians. Although the picture seems grim, it is still not impossible to reverse the downward spiral. The Delhi Metro is a great example of how we can inspire our countrymen to become better citizens. For those accustomed to the stinking, pan-stained platforms of our railway stations, the Metro is a shining example of civilised public behaviour. Passengers stand in queues (occasionally shoving but still in line); young men will invariably get up to offer their seat to an elderly co-passenger or lady; there is virtually no litter and women are safe. Why is this so? Primarily, because we are proud of the one system that has set a standard of excellence we all desperately want. It is as simple as that.
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PROFILE: Anu Aga She practices the Vipassana system of meditation, which means to see things as they really are. One of India’s most ancient techniques of meditation, it was rediscovered by Gautam Buddha more than 2,500 years ago, and was taught by him as a remedy for universal ills. This non-sectarian technique aims at total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation. Tragedy after tragedy struck her. The reinvention of Anu Aga began in 1996, when her husband Rohinton Aga died following a heart attack, leaving Thermax — a small company making boilers that he had turned into a leader in energy and environmental solutions — in Anu’s hand. This was a crucial period as the company was in the midst of going public. A mere 14 months later, Anu’s 25-year-old son, Kurush, died in a car crash. If that wasn’t enough to bring Anu’s life to a shuddering halt, Thermax began to unravel at its seams. The company’s market cap nosedived from Rs 990 crore in 1996 to Rs 186 crore in 2000. Today, Anu Aga is a poster-woman for Indian entrepreneurs and worth a whopping $1.1 billion, according to the Forbes magazine. Thermax’s turnover has ballooned to more than Rs 3,246 crore. How did she accomplish all this? She says she turned to Vipassana after her son’s death, which gave her the strength to pick up the pieces. Having entered the corporate world by default, Anu always harboured another ambition inspired by Kurush: education. “This is where the company can make a difference, and it was my son’s wish that I did something for children,” she says. She convinced the Pune Municipal Corporation that Thermax be allowed to adopt a government school. Vidyaniketan, which took the best students from 26 government schools in the Pune region, was supported by the company for schooling up to Class 10. Together with Akanksha, an NGO, specialising in mobilising funds for educating children, the Thermax Foundation is also training teachers to work in government schools. Anu has also promoted a programme called ‘Teach for India’ — started in the late 1970s in the US — under which toppers of universities teach poor children for two years. Anu is now devoted to social work fulltime. Thermax is managed by her daughter, Meher. Of her new role as MP, she says “I am still learning”. As a member of a member of the National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi, Anu has made some valuable suggestions that have been accepted.
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On record Malini Awasthi has bestowed vibrancy to traditional folk music, giving it the respect it truly deserves. A postgraduate in Hindustani classical music from the famed Bhatkhande Music University, Malini in her interactive shows makes it a point to share the nuances of each folk composition, leaving her audiences mesmerised. Without compromising her unique ‘gayaki’, she has adapted to the demands of the times. A disciple of Padma Vibhushan-winner Girija Devi, Malini has popularised various forms of music from the Banaras and Awadh region, such as the Dadra, Sohar, Banna, Jhoola, Kajri, Holi, Chaiti and Dhobiya, showcasing these on the national and international stage as well as well-received television reality shows. Recently, she was honoured by Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi for her proactive role as the Election Commission’s brand ambassador in Uttar Pradesh, where women’s participation increased by a phenomenal 42.77 per cent and the total voters increased by a whopping 1.98 crore!
Malini speaks to The Tribune of her experience motivating voters, especially youth and women. How did you got involved in this exciting assignment with the Election Commission? This was the idea of Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha. He had seen me performing on stage on several occasions and came up with this proposal for me to be the brand ambassador of the state. I guess it was due to my non-political image, as I am not associated with any political party, and was hence acceptable to all. He thought being a woman I would be able to connect better with women and the youth, who till then had a dismal record in exercising their franchise. How did you go about this
responsibility? First of all, let me make it clear that this was a collective effort with many people diligently working overtime to make it happen under the overall guidance of Umesh Sinha. As an aware citizen, I fully understood the significance of the effort and as an artiste I knew the potential I had in reaching out to the people. We first worked on a theme song, “Jago jago desh ke matdata”. The wordings were penned by Umesh, and I set it to tune. We then worked on a repertoire of songs keeping in mind the linguistic and folk diversity of the state. If it was in Brajbhasha for the western districts, it was Bundeli, Bhojpuri or Awadhi elsewhere. We incorporated various forms like qawwali, birha, or instruments like the nakkarra, to widen the appeal. Did you have special performances in the districts? I travel a lot for my musical performances. What I did was tie up with the EC so that during the day special programmes were arranged in colleges, universities, the city town hall or elsewhere. As this was a completely voluntary exercise, the arrangement worked well. My musicians were in any case travelling with me for my scheduled musical concerts in the evenings. What was the response? It was tremendous. I must say there was excellent contribution of the National Service Scheme (NSS), with university professors coordinating the show. Actually, the strategy for voter enrolment this time was different. Earlier the campaigns were restricted to tehsil offices. This time it was focused on university campuses, which motivated the youth — first time voters — to come out in large numbers to become voters. Soon a momentum picked up in such a manner that district magistrates were requesting for such special programmes in their districts. It really became a peoples’ movement. What were the challenges? It was not easy. My job was to motivate people for political participation, without appearing to be partisan. I remember during one such interaction at Banaras Hindu University, a student complained that he would not vote as he had seen all political parties and did not want to vote for any. My responsibility was to explain how he had to be the change he wanted to see in the system. I also had many moving experiences. For instance, while interacting with students in Gorakhpur, a young girl told me she had observed during past elections that her mother was not allowed to vote by her father despite her wanting to. “This time, I will ensure my mother votes,” the young woman assured me. It was truly a satisfying experience. My biggest moment, however, came when during a felicitation programme CEC Quraishi asked me to give a special 25-minute lecture-demonstration showing how I did it! |
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Some trees look like sons to me./ Some like mothers./ Some are daughters, brides,/ A few like brothers.
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