Industrial effluent, sewage water polluting rivers in country: National Green Tribunal chief

Lambasting the seven states through which river Ganga flows, Justice Goel said that the Centre had allocated Rs 25,000 crore under the Mission for Clean Ganga, but none of these state governments has so far taken any concrete steps to stop the flow of dirty water and industrial discharge into the Ganges. The NGT has directed these state governments to submit the expenditure report to the prime minister, who is the head of the Mission for Clean Ganga.

The NGT chief said that the quality of air and water has deteriorated to an alarming stage, and it is the duty of every individual to take responsibility to clean the environment and stand against the violators who pollute it.

He said that imposing penalties on a state government by the NGT will not be enough to control the pollution until the people awaken themselves and raise their voice against it.

Justice Goel appealed to people to come forward on their own to help clean the environment as government machinery alone could not do it.

“If people do not change their lifestyle, everything will be destroyed,” he said, adding that people are falling prey to diseases due to impurities in air air, water, and food.

Justice Goel said that a clean environment is the right of human life.

He lauded the efforts of Seechewal for his endeavour to clean the sacred Kali Bein rivulet and stressed the need to adopt Seechewal model to save water and air.

While talking about the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, Seechewal said that there had been many violations of this law, but the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) had not punished anyone under this Act. The people of Punjab were suffering from cancer and other dreadful diseases due to the polluted environment, he added.

Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice (retired) Pritam Pal, Punjab former chief secretary S C Aggarwal, who is also a senior member of the NGT, and PPCB chairman Adarsh Pal Vij were also present.

Babu Ram, a senior member of the NGT monitoring committee, said that there are 143 garbage dumps in Punjab and the one at Ludhiana is huge – almost the size of a small mountain. This garbage dump covers an area of more than 50 acres.