Transfer of maintenance of green bridges on Buddha Nallah could be delayed further

LUDHIANA: The transfer of annual maintenance of green bridges on Buddha Nallah from Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to municipal corporation (MC) is expected to be delayed further with the instructions of the Union ministry of environment and forest (MOEF) to get water samples from the drain tested not abided by. The PPCB officials even feigned ignorance about the status of sampling. MC officials however claimed that PPCB was avoiding sampling because they know the results will not be satisfactory.
In a meeting held in December last year, the ministry had directed to conduct a joint sampling from the drain to see the actual results of the green bridge technology being implemented on some portion of the drain. The MC was also demanding a report from PPCB officials before taking over the project. Secondly the PPCB was supposed to train the MC staff on handling the bridges which did not happen either.

The teams of central pollution control board (CPCB), PPCB, MC and a private agency handling the maintenance at the moment were supposed to get the samples from Jainpur on January 3, 7 and 10. The MC officials claimed that PPCB officials did not come for collecting the samples on January 3 and now they are not giving any satisfactory reply.

Joint commissioner MC Satwant Singh said they were in talks with the ministry now on the sample filling. However on the other hand chief engineer, PPCB Pradeep Gupta said he was not aware of the status of sampling as some other officer has been given the responsibility and he will be able to clear the air on Monday.

The MC in 2011 however in a resolution had approved that they would maintain the bridges after the completion of project. MC will pay Rs 1.5 crore for the annual maintenance of these bridges. Notably, the project that started way back in December 2012, was expected to complete in March 2014 but the project was completed in March 2016.

A total of five bridges were constructed on Buddha Nallah near Jainpur where drain water gets mixed with the Satluj. The idea behind constructing these green bridges was to reduce the pollution levels of the drain through bio-remediation method where bacteria was released to treat the pollutants in drain.