Opinion Express View: Ludhiana gas tragedy points to a longstanding problem with waste management in Indian cities

A probe is on to ascertain the reason for the gas leak that claimed 11 lives on Sunday in Ludhiana’s Giaspura area. One thing, however, appears clear — the leak was precipitated by a chemical reaction in an open sewer. The FIR on the incident notes that “some people usually get rid of industrial waste by dumping it in sewage lines”. There can be no doubt that culpability for the gas leak must be fixed. But untreated waste getting into the city’s sewer network has been a longstanding concern for the city’s municipal authorities. Preliminary reports suggest that Sunday’s calamity could be linked to this problem.

Giaspura has much in common with urban conurbations in several parts of the country where factories co-exist with residential buildings. Areas with such mixed land-use profiles require stringent pollution monitoring and well-maintained sewerage networks. But pipes and drains are in a poor state of upkeep in most parts of the country and pollution control bodies in the states rarely manage to do justice to their mandate. Unlike the Central Pollution Control Board, which has robust laboratories and specialised units, state pollution bodies do not offer a congenial environment for developing expertise. An assistant environmental engineer at a state pollution control board or a Grade B scientist has to monitor the implementation of every aspect of environment protection rules — biomedical and industrial waste, air and water pollution. In February, Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey, informed the Rajya Sabha that 49 per cent of the positions in SPCBs and pollution control committees are vacant. Last year, a Centre for Policy Research study of nine SPCBs — including that of Punjab — revealed that scientists, medical practitioners and academics constitute only seven per cent of the members of these boards while potential polluters, such as industries and public sector corporations, have a more than 50 per cent representation.

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Giaspura is the latest in a long list of waste-related calamities in the country. Last year, six people died after a tanker dumped toxic material in Surat. In March, a mountain of garbage caught fire in Kochi and spewed noxious gases for over a week. Delhi’s waste mounds have been a public health hazard for more than a decade. Dealing with such problems requires joining the dots with municipal governance, urban planning and environmental management. Unfortunately, Indian cities have rarely been up to this task. Giaspura is a reminder that the task cannot be postponed for long.