NGT panel to inspect effluent treatment in Fazilka
Praful Chander Nagpal
Fazilka, January 3
The monitoring committee, set up by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), will visit Fazilka and adjoining areas on January 6 and 7 to monitor the activities being carried out for treatment of domestic and industrial effluents besides controlling pollution in Sutlej.
On January 6, the committee members and other stakeholders will visit the sewage treatment plants, industrial units and a few points of Sutlej river. Sources said panel head Jasbir Singh, former Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, along with SC Aggarwal, former Chief Secretary, Punjab, and Secretary Member Babu Ram, will visit the area.
Besides, Fazilka Deputy Commissioner, representatives of Ferozepur, Moga, Faridkot and Muktsar and senior officials of different departments, have also been directed to take part in the meeting.
Fazilka DC Manpreet Singh Chhatwal conducted a review meeting today. Officials of the Punjab Pollution Control Board, Sewerage Board, Agriculture Department, Soil Conservation, executive officers of different municipal councils of Fazilka and Drainage Department participated and discussed measures to check water pollution.
A local progressive farmer, Vikram Ahuja, had filed a petition before the NGT last year in which he had claimed that the subsoil water in nearly 132 villages of the border district had become unfit for human consumption and agriculture purposes as the untreated water of major drains flowed into low-lying Fazilka and left water contaminated through seepage.
Ahuja claimed that 21 major drains and many sub-drains carrying sewage from various parts of the state had contaminated subsoil water in those villages. He also provided the alarming counts (that he got through RTI query) of total dissolved solids (TDS), fecal coliform (F Coli) and total suspended solids (TSS) pertaining to 21 drains. In response to it, the NGT directed the Fazilka DC and others to look into the matter. The DC was made the nodal officer.
Notably, all 25 samples taken by the PPCB from tube wells, hand-pumps and drains had failed the quality test in September last year.
Later, the NGT constituted the monitoring committee.
DC Manpreet Singh Chhatwal said the untreated water from five districts was being dumped into the drains which ultimately reached the low-lying areas of Fazilka and accumulated here, thus affecting water quality.
