Concerned over flowing heavy discharge of industrial effluents and domestic waste into the drains, the Punjab Government would soon take up the “serious” issue with the UT administrator Shivraj Patil, who is also Punjab Governor.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday decided to seek Patil’s personal intervention for taking effective steps to prevent the flow of untreated municipal waste and industrial effluents into seasonal rivulets and drains, which ultimately merge in River Ghaggar thereby aggravating magnitude of pollution problem manifold besides posing a major health hazard in the Punjab territory.
The decision was taken during a high level meeting to review the progress of Ghaggar river cleaning project along with lissara and Chand Bhan drains. According to the mapping undertaken by Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) of the various industrial and domestic sewer outlets within Chandigarh’s jurisdiction, they result in heavy pollution of river Ghaggar with about two million litres per day (MlD) discharge of untreated waste water.
These sewer outlets included IT Park, Kishangarh, Bhagwanpura, Shastri Nagar, Bapu Dham Colony, Madrasi Colony and Hallomajra. Badal would flag up the issue with the UT Administrator so that proper treatment mechanism as per prescribed norms could be put in place by the UT before discharging this waste water in the Sukhna Choe which ultimately polluted Ghaggar.
On Punjab's side, PPCB had identified various waste water outlets and planned to install Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) at a cost of Rs 9.65 crore at Zirakpur and Dera Bassi to ensure zero discharge of effluents in Ghaggar.
To check the inflow of untreated industrial as well as sewer waste water into Ghaggar from Haryana, the senior officers of both the States had already organised several meetings for which Badal asked the concerned authorities from Punjab Government to expedite the process and resolve the issue in a result oriented manner.
Monitoring the situation of sewerage system and STPs that had already commissioned in Zirakpur, Sardulgarh, Mohali, Bhikhi and Samana besides at Patiala and Banur, Badal underscored the need to expedite the work at war footing at various STPs at Rajpura, lehra Gagga, Khanouri, Moonak, Patran, Bassi Pathana, Sirhind, Nabha, Mandi Gobindgarh, Sanour, longowal, Sunam and Sangrur so as to make them functional in a stipulated time frame.
Chief Minister also directed all the concerned to make use of zero discharge treatment technology in order to prevent mixing of Industrial effluents in the domestic sewers.