Farmers protest contamination of canal water in Sriganganagar

Raising concerns over the supply of contaminated canal water and highlighting the “callous attitude” of the state government in checking its quality, farmers and farm workers held a protest at Gandhi Chowk in Sriganganagar. The protesters warned that they would organise a bandh in the border district on November 9 if the problem was not resolved.

Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (KSS) spokesperson Subhash Sehgal said the farmers had been approaching the Centre and the state since 2014 regarding the problem, highlighting the unchecked release of chemical waste and sewage into the Sutlej and the Beas. They had also filed petitions with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had repeatedly fined the Punjab Government, he said. Meetings were held with the Punjab Pollution Control Board at Patiala, and Chief Ministers of Rajasthan had also spoken to their Punjab counterparts many a time in the past, but the problem had not been solved till date, Sehgal added. Besides, drug smuggling had significantly increased over the years in Punjab and Rajasthan, he said.

KSS district president Amar Singh Bishnoi said at a meeting in New Delhi, the representatives of farm unions were assured by Gajinder Singh Shekhawat, the then Jal Shakti Minister, that the Punjab Government would be directed to take long-awaited action to stop the contamination of the rivers by the effluents released from Buddha Nullah and industrial units. However, nothing of that sort happened.

He said the successive governments did nothing in the matter. He said surprisingly, the present ruling party in Punjab chose to send Balbir Singh Seechewal, who spearheaded an anti-river pollution campaign in Punjab, to Rajya Sabha but the government was not prepared to follow his guidelines on this issue. He said cleanliness campaigns were organised on Gandhi Jayanti but no one was concerned about the contaminated water that people had to consume.

Gurlal Singh, a farmer, said the polluted water had caused cancer, liver infection and other diseases in the Malwa region of Punjab and the districts of Sriganganagar and Hanumangarh.