Buddha Nullah dirt echoes in Rajya Sabha

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Chandigarh/New Delhi, July 22

Punjab has not conducted any impact assessment on the cancerous nature of Buddha Nullah water till date, said Minister of State for Jal Shakti Raj Bhushan Chaudhary in a reply to a question posed by Satnam Singh Sandhu in the Rajya Sabha today.

The stinking, toxic and dark water of the nullah in the ‘Manchester of India’ is said to be a home to cancer causing pathogens besides germs causing skin diseases, gastroenteritis, indigestion and loss of eyesight. A number of NGOs across the state — the Bhai Ghanayia Cancer Roko Society, the Naroa Punjab Manch and the Public Action for River Sutlej — had asked the government last year to ensure that untreated industrial effluents were not dumped in the rivulet.

As per the minister’s reply, the Department of Health and Family Welfare of Punjab has not conducted any impact assessment on the cancerous nature of nullah along its basin. Highlighting the importance of the question, the reply also said that the “issue requires multi-sectoral/multi-departmental approach involving different departments of the state government”.

Giving details on cleaning of the Sutlej polluted due to discharge of Buddha Nullah, the reply stated that the state government has undertaken the Buddha Nullah Rejuvenation Project with the financial assistance from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation. It included setting up sewage treatment plants (STPs) of 225 million litres per day (MLD) at Jamalpur and 60 MLD at Balloke; rehabilitation of STPs at Bhattian and Balloke; two effluent plants for treatment of waste water from Haibowal and Tajpur road dairy complexes.

In order to prevent and control industrial discharge from clusters of small/medium scale dyeing industries in Ludhiana, common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) of capacity 40 MLD, 50 MLD & 15 MLD have been made operational. Other scattered dyeing units have their captive ETPs. For electroplating units, another CETP of 0.5 MLD is operational and thus ensuring no discharge of untreated industrial waste into Buddha Nullah.