No move to clean polluted Gurugram irrigation canal

Bijendra Ahlawat

Faridabad, March 28

The 17-km-long Gurugram irrigation canal passing through the city has virtually turned into a sewage drain with quality of water unfit for the purpose it was built. It continues to pollute the air and water quality with no move to cleanse it till date.

Sources in the Irrigation Department said though the Gurugram and the Agra canals running parallel in the city were thrown open for irrigation in Faridabad, Gurugram, Mewat and Agra district of UP, the water quality has turned poor due to unchecked release of untreated industrial and sewer waste into these canals. The biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), the amount of oxygen consumed by bacteria and other microorganisms while they decompose organic matter under aerobic conditions, touches 32 points when these canals enter the district, while this has been at just 2 when the Yamuna river enters Delhi, according to officials concerned. With 64 drains releasing waste in Delhi region, a majority of the water released is untreated , it is claimed. “Besides this huge quantity of untreated waste is also released in Faridabad making it more toxic,” says an official on condition of anonymity. These canals receive water from Yamuna river near Okhla (Delhi).

“The downside is that with no serious efforts made to counter the problem, any plan to clean it had been missing,” says AK Gaur of the Faridabad Action Group (FAG) , an NGO. Describing these as sewage drains he said these have become a bane of the city, which is already in the list of top 15 polluted cities in the world. He said the quality of ground water supplied by tubewells and borewells has become unfit due to heavy total dissolved solids (TDS) and concentration of toxic chemicals. Satbir Dagar, from the Progressive Farmers Front, claims that poor upkeep and lack of cleanliness has led to remarkable surge in health disorders in the region. All samples of the canal water have failed in the past, he adds.

Virender Rawat, Executive Engineer, Irrigation Department, said that a report is sought from the Pollution Control Board on a regular basis to keep an eye on the quality of water of the Gurugram canal.