Stop dumping waste into rivers, Capt tells industry

Holding every individual responsible for saving the State and its environment, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday called upon the industry to take appropriate steps to check the pollution caused by their factories.

Capt Amarinder, speaking at the IISER after launching Punjab Government’s landmark initiative — Mission Tandarust Punjab — to transform Punjab into the healthiest state by creating a healthy living environment for the people through better air, water and food quality, also stressed on the need for curtailing paddy cultivation in order to save the fast depleting water resources.

Expressing concern over the fast depleting ground water level, he underlined the importance of introducing crops that use less water, while warning that “if we don’t act now, things will become extremely bad for the state in the times ahead”.

Capt Amarinder, reiterating his government’s commitment to ensuring clean water, made it clear that throwing of waste into rivers by industry was not acceptable. “It is the industry’s responsibility to control water pollution by ensuring that no untreated water or effluent is thrown into the rivers,” he stressed while expressing serious concern about the river pollution by the cities, which he said needed to be “stopped immediately”.

The Chief Minister exhorted the people to go back to planting traditional trees like Kikar, Neem, Berry etc instead of Poplar and Eucalyptus to protect the environment, and cited the example of Dubai where cutting the native tree was an offence.

He appealed to every household in the state to plant at least one tree to contribute to protection of the environment for the coming generations.

At the same time, he called for judicious use of pesticides to save the environment and asked the Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana, to intensify its efforts to educate farmers about the same.

Chief Minister also launched ‘Tandarust Punjab’ booklet, as well as ‘Ghar Ghar Haryali’ app for providing information about saplings available with the Forest Department as per season.

To mark the occasion, the Chief Minister presented saplings of Chandan (sandalwood) to 13 eco-conservationists for the plantation of 10 lakh saplings across the state. He also formally launched the Mohali district administration’s ‘Mission Green Mohali’ initiative to plant one crore trees in three years.

Describing the Mission as a major initiative in the context of growing environmental pollution, the state Forest and Wildlife Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot announced that the Department would provide one lakh saplings of sandalwood to farmers for planting at the boundaries of their fields. Department had set a target to plant eight crore saplings of various kinds across the state, he said.

Environment Minister Om Parkash Soni urged the Chief Minister to take stringent steps to check inflow of untreated water and effluent into the rivers.

The prestigious PGIMER’s former director Dr KK Talwar welcomed the launch of the Tandrust Punjab Mission while emphasizing the need to strengthen regulatory and monitoring mechanism. He suggested the constitution of an expert group to ensure stringent implementation of this unique programme.

Padma Shri Baba Sewa Singh Khadoor Sahib called upon the people to take a pledge to save water, air and soil of state, in order to make Punjab the healthiest State.

He also advocated the need to shun the practice of throwing sacks of waste into the rivers and to stop stubble burning.