Farmers Movement Archive

Sangrur tubewell spews out polluted water; PPCB blames dismantled factory

Sangrur Amid hue and cry over a tubewell spewing out chemically-contaminated water in Aloarakh village near Bhawanigarh town of the district, the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) has laid the blame on a private factory dismantled 15 years ago. The PPCB had sent a team to the site, after a video of the tubewell went viral on social media on Thursday. Farmers and owners of the land where the tubewell is located, claimed that they had been raising the issue for over ten years, but no one listened to their pleas.Kulwinder Singh, 60, the tubewell owner, said a private unit had polluted groundwater. On digging up to over 200metre, the problem started. “The tubewell of my nephew Amrit Singh is also throwing polluted water. Today, a team came to inspect the site. The waste chemicals of the factory were being disposed of into the land using a borewell. This polluted the entire groundwater of the area,” said Kulwinder Singh, who owns five acre. “I irrigate my fields from the tubewells of neighbours. I am not raising this issue for my land, I want to save the next generations from contaminated water,” he claimed.Harmail Singh, a leader of BKU (Ekta-Ugrahan), said the government should punish those polluting the groundwater. PPCB executive engineer Rajeev Gupta said the factory was dismantled in 2005 and the department had taken up the matter with National Green Tribunal (NGT), which had imposed a fine of ₹2 crore on factory owners, who did not pay up. “Our team has visited the sites. As of now, a tubewell was found throwing out coloured water, but we were told that there are two or three other tubewells. We have sent a report to the state government,” added Gupta.

Hindustan Times

08-07-2021

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