River pollution assumes political significance in Assembly bypoll

Ecological concerns are threatening to affect the political environment in Punjab just before the Shahkot Assembly by-election. The incident of molasses spillage in Beas river by Chadha Sugar Mill in Gurdaspur is reverberating about 100 kilometres away in Shahkot.

After the issue of illegal mining, the opposition parties are now targeting the ruling Congress for its insensitive attitude towards pollution of state waters which has assumed alarming proportion with the intervention of the national green court.

It was the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which has approached the National Green Tribunal (NGT) filing complaint against the inaction by the state authorities as a large number of fish were found killed on May 17 in Beas river after molasses from a sugar factory leaked into river in Beas town.

Even the renowned environmentalist and Padmashree Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal, who had campaigned for the Congress candidate Hardev Singh alias Laddi Sherowalia, is also asking the people to vote for the party which is supporting the environmental issues.

With politics on his mind, SAD president Sukhbir Badal met Baba Seechewal on Tuesday to take up the issue of recent “disaster” caused by the spillage of molasses in Beas river. Sukhbir, considering significance of Baba Seechewal, did not directly sought his support but minced no words to accuse the state government of trying to save the sugar mill owners as they were close to the Chief Minister.

Alarmed, the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh issued directions to the state Environment Minister OP Soni and Punjab Pollution Control Board chairman Kahan Singh Pannu who then met Baba Seechewal, on Wednesday, to discuss the issue of pollution in rivers and other water channels in the state and ways to tackle it.

Baba Seechewal, who hails from Seechewal village falling under Shahkot assembly segment, has all along been working for cleaning the highly contaminated 165-km long ‘bein’, connected with Sikhs’ first master Guru Nanak Dev, with the help of his followers for the past two decades without any Government support.

Shahkot constituency is home to two water bodies of the state — Chitti Bein and Kala Sanghian. Dumping of effluents from Phagwara industries into Chitti Bein and toxins from Jalandhar industries into Kala Sanghian have left the two water bodies polluted.

Untreated water, industrial and chemical were being discharged in rivers which is causing a large scale pollution of water which has resulted in deaths of aquatic animals and generated fatal diseases to human beings.

The pollution is not only limited to the state, but has also reached an alarming proportion contaminating rivers in the neighbouring Rajasthan too.

The erring sugar mill — Chadha Sugar Mill at Kiri Afghana in Gurdaspur — belonged to Jasdeep Kaur Chadha, daughter of former Delhi Gurdwara Sikh Parbandhak Committee chief Harvinder Singh Sarna and elder sister of religious advisor of Punjab Chief Minister Paramjit Singh Sarna. Jasdeep’s late husband Hardeep Singh Chadha was the brother of liquor baron late Ponty Chadha.

In fact during the campaigning, it was the only issue that none of the political party forgets to raise and talk about. While the SAD and AAP blame the Congress for “ignoring” the contamination of water for all this while, the ruling party made attempts to defend itself by assuring resolution of the problem at the earliest.

In fact, much before the Beas spill incident, people have glued posters outside their houses in Seechewal village saying that they will not vote for those who won’t stop ‘contaminating’ rivers and rivulets.