Cancer Belt Baddi

Ambika Sharma in Baddi

Picture this: a labyrinth of an industry cluster spread over 35 km with over 2,000 units manufacturing as diverse products as battery cells, leather, textile and medicines — together employing about 1.25 lakh workers, mostly migrants. This is Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh area in Himachal Pradesh, sandwiched between Chandigarh, Punjab and Haryana. As a tax haven, the area sits dangerously perched on a hazardous zone: a dozen peripheral villages have reported 80 cancer cases in the last two-and-a-half years, with ever-rising incidents of kidney stone, skin problems, chronic breathing and heart ailments.

This is highlighted in a cross-sectional survey conducted by a three-member team of medical experts from Shimla’s Indira Gandhi Medical College’s (IGMC) Department of Community Medicine. The survey was conducted in March-April last year at the insistence of Doon (a part of Shimla Lok Sabha constituency) MLA Ramkumar Chawdhary. The MLA had repeatedly been approached by villagers from Manpura, Balyan, Buranwala, Upper and Lower Barer, Manjhotu, Barotiwala, Belikhol, Malpur, Bhatoli Kalan, Handakhundi and others. 

Pathetic state of affairs

Devraj Chawdhary, former pradhan of Saned panchayat, cites the most recent case of a 7-year-old boy diagnosed with the brain tumor. He says soil and underground water has been contaminated by haphazard disposal of industrial effluents. “Villagers don’t use water purifiers. The groundwater level has drastically declined as industries continue to draw large amounts of it through bore-wells installed within factory compounds. The air at times gets thick with dust and smoke,” says Devraj.

Villagers last year had taken up toxic water discharge from a battery unit at the local grievances committee meeting chaired by the MLA. The villagers had alleged that many cattle heads had died and the agricultural soil had been affected. State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) executive engineer Brij Bhushan inspected the units and issued them notices to comply with anti-pollution measures for optimal treatment of toxic-ridden effluent.

Early this year, the High Court converted the villagers’ complaint into a PIL and asked the state SPCB and others to respond. It is only now that the state government has cared to take a look at the IGMC survey in order to respond to the court. 

Alarming findings

The IGMC report says most cancer patients from the dozen villages sought treatment at PGI Chandigarh. So, the state health authorities had no record of such patients. Since cancer is a hidden enemy and has a long latent period to manifest, experts were not able to link it to environmental contamination, though IGMC experts did interview the patients. They also saw the records of those who had died.

The survey details the number of cancer patients since 2011 (11 cases) for the dozen villages. It reported 19 cases in the following year. In 2013, the number of reported cases rose to 30. The count for the subsequent years was 24 and 28. In the first quarter (four months) of 2016, the figure was 19 cases. 

The study had its limitations as records of merely 17 patients were available. The remaining cases were analyzed on the basis of statements of relatives.

The survey found the maximum number of 15.8% patients out of 82 identified since 1992 had oral and oropharyngeal (throat cancer) followed by 13% oesophageal, 9.7% larynx and 7.3% stomach-related. 

The impact of environmental pollutants was not evaluated though experts expressed concern over the mushrooming of industries. They underlined the need to maintain a cancer registry for the area to detect the trend. They also recommended awareness activities about cancer so that the disease is detected early.

The report says the five-year prevalence for all types of cancer in the Saned panchayat was 206.6 per lakh population, which is almost akin to the national five-year prevalence for India: 202.9 per lakh population. 

Govt sits pretty

The state government has not taken up any fresh, comprehensive study to assess the impact of environmental pollutants on the health of the locals. This is despite several warnings from previous studies underlining the presence of carcinogenic contents in the soil and water of the industrial belt. 

Chief Medical Officer Dr RK Daroch accepts that the prevalence of cancer and other diseases is “above-normal.” “I have written to the SPCB to study the situation.”

An environmental study conducted by IIT Kanpur scientists in the area in 2014 had warned of a dangerous situation at 16 sites of the industrial belt. It noted higher-than-normal presence of carcinogen benzoapyrene (BaP found in coal tar, automobile exhaust fumes, etc.,) at five sites. So was the level of arsenic at some sites. The lead concentration in water also exceeded the safe limits as per the Bureau of Indian Standards in as many as 11 sites. The study also found Particulate Matter (PM) at a higher level than the National Ambient Air Quality (NAAQ) standards.

It recommended the following remedial measures: 

• Two round-the-clock automatic air quality stations in the Baddi-Nalagarh area with monitoring of all 12 pollutants, including benzene, toluene, xylene. 
• The SPCB lab at Parwanoo should be upgraded with sophisticated instruments.

Dr Manjit Singh Bal, professor pathology, MM Medical College & Hospital Kumarhatti (Solan) says since traces of carcinogens have exceeded the safe limits, these can be related to the spurt in cancer cases. Dr Bal was a professor and the head of pathology, Government Medical College, Patiala. He was also the co-principal investigator of population-based cancer registry in Punjab.

He says lead is a by-product in battery manufacturing units. So villagers living in the vicinity run a serious risk to their health. “The 47 of the cancers (oesophagus: 11, lung: 9, larynx: 8, lips & oropharynx: 13 and stomach: 6) listed in the IGMC report fall under the category of tobacco-related cancers. Air pollution with dangerous elements in combination with tobacco smoke could be a cause of cancer in these cases,” he says.