Make environment agenda for Punjab elections, says Seechewal

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 17

Exerting pressure on political parties to include environment as the main agenda for the forthcoming poll, Punjab Lok Chetna Lehar is set to organise a debate with leaders of all parties at Ramgarhia College, Ludhiana, on December 20.

Led by environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal, former-IAS officer Kahn Singh Pannu and various representatives from the Sant Samaj aims to put up the issue of right to live in a clean environment having clean air, water and nutrition as the most significant demand of the masses. The members of the movement said they had invited political leaders by name — Navjot Sidhu from the Congress, Bhagwant Mann from Aam Aadmi Party, Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema from SAD and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa from SAD (Sanyukt). Seechewal said they would specifically ask parties that have ruled the state as to what they have done for saving environment during their tenure. “We will also ask parties such as AAP which have not yet come to power as to what magic wand they will use to change the face of the environment for the betterment of Punjabis,” he said.

He made his point: “Certainly, inflation, crisis farming and unemployment are issues. But owing to deteriorating environment, lives and health of people are at stake. The mounds of solid waste are on a rise. The untreated water is straightaway being mixed with river waters leading to cancer among residents of the villages falling along the banks of the river.”

Pannu said: “My idea of joining the movement is to simply awaken voters to rise to the problems and question the authorities and politicians as to what good work they have done to protect the environment. Listing out various alarming facts, he said the groundwater in the state would exhaust in the next 17 years. There is a need to treat 2,200 MLD of sewer water but we have systems to treat only 1,600 MLD and the rest 600 MLD in being directly discharged into the drains or river bodies. The permissible BOD is of 10 ppm, whereas this value tested at Buddha Nullah came out to be 1,610 ppm. The AGI should ideally not be beyond 50, but this value comes only in rainy days.