No govt has worked sincerely to make rivers pollution-free, says Seechewal

Rajya Sabha member and environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal said no government had worked honestly to make the rivers pollution-free.

Appealing to people on the occasion of ‘World River Day’, Seechewal said, “Rivers are invaluable heritage of Punjab, every Punjabi should consider it his moral responsibility to protect these from pollution. No government has fixed the responsibility of administrative officials to protect rivers from getting polluted.”

Seechewal said people had been worshipping rivers for centuries, no one had even thought that in a country that worshipped rivers, people would turn these into poisonous one. World River Day was celebrated on September 22.

Seechewal said Punjab owes its name to five rivers. Unfortunately, at the time of the Partition in 1947, this land of five rivers and its rivers were divided. Now only three are in Punjab, the biggest of them, the Sutlej, had become extremely polluted.

Seechewal said even the water of the Khande Bate, prepared during the establishment of Khalsa Panth, was taken from the Sutlej. The river, which was Amrit, is now spreading death in the form of cancer in the region.

Addressing a function organised during the recently concluded ‘8th Indian Water Week’ at Pragati Maidan, Delhi, Sant Seechewal had said administrative officers were responsible for polluting the rivers. Despite every officer being aware of the existence of the Water Act of 1974, they had failed to implement it. Seechewal said there was politics on rivers, but no government gave priority to cleaning these.

Seechewal appealed to the Punjabis to come forward to save their heritage from getting polluted. He praised the youth who stopped people from throwing material and plastic envelops in the Sutlej and said it was the moral responsibility of all Punjabis to save their rivers from pollution.

Seechewal said the target of November 11, 2011, was set to make the river pollution-free, for which a budget of about Rs 2,000 crore was also kept. Similarly, in 1985, the then Central Government had fixed a budget of Rs 1,000 crore to clean the Ganga. It was not cleaned but Rs 1,000 crore was spent in the name of its cleaning.

Similarly, the present government kept Rs 20,000 crore for cleaning the Ganga, but it could not be cleaned completely. Although the Centre had adopted the ‘Sechewal Model’ to prevent pollution of 1,657 villages situated on the banks of the Ganga from falling into the Ganga, it was not implemented.