Nihalsinghwala: Battling groundwater pollution

Kulwinder Sandhu

Polluted groundwater is the byword for the Nihalsinghwala constituency, which has been declared a “dark zone” by the Central Ground Water Board.

The use of fertilisers and pesticides has left harmful traces of uranium and heavy metals in the groundwater in several villages of the reserved segment.

Groundwater pollution is not the only problem residents of 65 villages of this segment grapple with. Groundwater has been overexploited, so much so that the water table goes down by 75 to 85 cm every year.

Manjinder Singh, a resident of Bilaspur village, says: “I recently reinstalled my submersible pump at a depth of more than 600 ft to pump out water for irrigating my fields.”

He is among hundreds of farmers who reinstal their submersible pumps deeper every year. There are 20,000 tubewell connections in the constituency.

Balwant Singh of Patto Hira Singh village says, “About 20 years ago, we used to drink water from hand pumps which were installed at a depth of 30 to 40 ft. Today, we cannot think of installing hand pumps as the water table has gone down drastically.”

Locals’ key demands

• Improved law and order situation
• Curb drug menace in villages
• Upgrade civil hospital
• Set up industry to create jobs

Past trend

The Congress has never won the seat after the Emergency. Zora Singh of the SAD won in 2002 and Ajit Singh Shant (Independent) in 2007. Akali Dal’s Rajwinder Kaur contested successfully in the 2012 poll, while Manjit Singh Bilaspur of the AAP won in 2017.

Electorate strength

Total voters: 1,94,095

Male: 1,04,274

Female: 89,813

Third gender: 8