Dung threatens nullah revival

Ludhiana: Noticing how a serious amount of dairy waste is entering the Buddha Nullah via sewers, municipal commissioner Shena Aggarwal on Tuesday asked the sewerage board to stop the city’s dairy complexes and cattle pounds from tossing their cow dung into the gutters.
During this meeting at the municipal corporation’s zone D office in Sarabha Nagar, the MC commissioner also asked the Punjab Energy Development Authority (Peda) to install a biogas plant at Tajpur Road to let that area’s dairy businesses process dung cakes into somethig useful instead of dumping these in the gutters. Peda will send its officials to the MC commissioner for another meeting on this issue.
The MC commissioner has asked Peda to ensure that the Hambran Road biogas plant runs at full capacity. Shena Aggarwal said: “The Buddha Nullah rejuvenation project will not be 100% successful if we fail to resolve the cow dung problem, so now the concentration is on the dairy complexes. We will have a detailed discussion with Peda over the biogas plant project and we will install some ETPs (effluent treatment plants) as well.”
Water pollution due to the local dairy complexes is an old issue, The debate over shifting these dairy units outside the city limits is at least a decalde old. However, in all these years and despite all the efforts, these units could not be shifted anywhere. Now the process for installing effluent treatment plants for both dairy complexes is also going to start under the Buddha Nullah rejuvenation project.
Aam Aadmi Party legislator Madan Lal Bagga had a meeting with the MC commissioner and other officials about the beautification of the Buddha Nullah. He asked the officials to plug those gaps under the fence that runs along the drain, since the civic body had fitted this mesh to prevent the dumpinng of solid waste into the water. Now people use those gaps to throw garbage into the nullah. He proposed laying a walking track around the nullah, from Chand cinema to the railway line. He asked for tree plantation around the drain to contain pollution of the Buddha Nullah.