Punjab Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan on Tuesday directed all government departments to take all necessary measures for checking major environmental problems — air and water river pollution — along with ensuring waste management across the State.Mahajan, chairing a meeting to review issues related to the environment in the state, said that as a part of ongoing works to clean the river waters in Punjab, the Local Govt has initiated works of worth Rs 2,140 crore to mitigate water pollution in the rivers, including laying of sewerage system and installation of Sewerage Treatment Plants .The Chief Secretary said that apart from this, in-situ remediation in drains of 13 river towns will commence shortly and will be completed within six months, which will primarily be undertaken in those towns where presently sewerage system does not exist.Mahajan added that the work of 38 STPs being installed in the river towns shall be allotted very shortly.
“To further control pollution due to industrial effluents, one CETP of 15 MLD capacity has already been installed and two CETPs of 40 and 50 MLD capacity will be installed by June 2021. This will help in reduction of pollution in river Satluj,” she said.
Mahajan added that in another initiative to rejuvenate the village ponds, the Rural Development Department has accomplished work to rejuvenate in 223 village ponds and 1062 ponds are currently being rejuvenated by adopting Seechewal or Haripur model within coming three months.“In another novel initiative, it has been decided to launch a new scheme to phase out old diesel operated autos with e-auto rickshaws in the city of Amritsar. As per the proposed scheme, 7,500 diesel operated Autos are to be replaced e-Autorickshaws, for which a subsidy of Rs 75,000 will be provided to each auto owners,” she said.
Besides mitigating the air pollution, this will help in reduction in running cost by 66 percent, she said, adding that this model will also be replicated in other major towns also.
Further, the Chief Secretary said that Punjab is preparing two important policies namely “Faecal Sludge and Septage Management Policy” and “e-Waste Management Policy”, which are advance stages and are likely to be implemented in next three months.