A resident of Hujra village, downstream Budda Nullah, shows dirty tap water. Tribune photo: Inderjeet Verma |
Ludhiana, January 14
“Their riches are our sorrow,” rues Surat Singh, a 60-year-old farmer of Khurshidpura village, near the confluence of Budda Nullah and the Sutlej, remembering how he lost his wife and two sons within a decade when the badly polluted water spread toxicity in the underground water.
“I don't know for how long we will be cursed with the side-effects of Ludhiana's prosperity. The industrialists there owe their riches to the industries but what we got is only diseases, pollution and deaths," he says.
Today, as Surat Singh's joints are also giving way, he is afraid of losing other family members, including his elder son and daughter-in-law, two grandsons, as they are forced to consume the polluted underground water.
Sharing his tale of woes, a distressed father said his life was shattered when his youngest son Gurbax Singh (19) fell prey to a kidney problem. It was not the end. He was yet to come to terms with reality when his middle son, Resham (23), too died of renal failure, followed by his mother. Doctors attributed the deaths to continuous consumption of chemical-laced water.
With no potable water source available in the village, the family, like scores of others, is dependent on the shallow hand pumps. As a result, its members are suffering from diseases like gastroenteritis, jaundice, skin ailments and cancer. The water pumped out is pale and stinking and the children who consume this water report stunted growth.
The headmaster of government elementary school of the village, Maha Singh, had, following a communication from the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation department, warned the villagers that the water was unfit for human consumption. But then from where to get it, was the reply of the villagers.
Sandeep Kaur, 2, of the same village has been suffering since birth as she is not able to digest anything. Similar is the condition of Lovepreet Singh, 7, a victim of
physical retardation. “He cannot eat. And whatever he does, he vomits it,” said his worried mother, who has no resources to undertake his treatment.
“We know the water is too toxic. But what is the solution? The government is not providing us piped water supply,” said village sarpanch Sant Singh, adding that the only solution was to stop the discharge of sewage and polluting effluents into Budda Nullah.
Similar sordid tales were repeated by hundreds of villagers along and downstream the nullah.
Jagjit Singh Lambran, sarpanch of Burj Lambran village, said the residents were dying with diseases like cancer, jaundice, kidney failure, stones and osteoporosis. The main affected villages, as per him, include Ballipur, Phaagla, Salempur, Basaimi and his Burj Lambran.
Among the several victims who had died in the recent past due to liver and kidney ailments, said he, included former sarpanches of Phaagla, Salempur and Basaimi villages, Manjit Singh, Ajit Singh and Charan Singh, respectively, and the lambardars of Ballipur and Burj Lambran villages, Harbans Singh and Raghbir Singh.
After the deaths that shook these villages, the residents started boring deep into the earth to get comparatively cleaner water. "But doctors tell us that it will not help much," added Jagjit.
Several villagers had bought water electronisers to test the purity of water only to be left disappointed. Sarpanch Balbir Singh of Hujra tested a glassful of water in front of The Tribune team and showed blackish precipitates settling at the bottom.
"After this test, it is no less than a horror to consume this water," he said, adding he later put up a Reverse Osmosis system.
The last study conducted on the nullah by scientists and doctors led by Dr KS Aulakh, former vice-chancellor of PAU, Dr LS Chawla, former vice-chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences and DMC principal Dr Daljit Singh reiterated the presence of toxic chemicals.
The scientists claimed that water samples taken from various villages along the nullah had alarming levels of calcium, magnesium, fluoride, mercury, B-endosulphan, heptachlor, ammonia, phosphate, chloride, chromium, arsenic and chlorpyriphos. The ground water showed nickel and selenium, while the tap water was high on lead, nickel and cadmium.
High concentration of pesticides like heptachlor, beta-endosulphan and chlorpyrifoses was found in samples of ground and canal water used for drinking. This was exceeding the maximum residue limit. Pesticides were also detected in fodder, vegetables, blood, cattle and human milk samples, indicating that these have entered the food chain due to the use of agricultural run-off and irrigation of field with drain water.
The team of doctors from DMC who conducted the study witnessed presence of various faeco-oral bacterial and viral diseases like leptospirosis, poliomyelitis and entero-viral disorders. They found that residents in these areas were also prone to diseases like trematode infection, tapeworm and roundworm. Besides, some serious disorders which could be reported in the region along the nullah were DNA damage, foetal and reproductive defects, besides cancer.
To be concluded
