God knows when the situation will change and people will find Buddha Nullah a total pollution-free

Ludhiana, March 1, 2018: The local government department Punjab has decided with the assistance of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to go in for the beautification as well as cleaning of 7 km long Tungdhab Nullah (Amritsar) a project worth Rs.5 crore and Jamalpur STP along with Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana in the initial phase and after getting successful results, the initiative would be replicated throughout the state. The work on cleaning and beautification of Tungdhab Nallah (Amritsar) would begin before March 16. The minister said that the project worth Rs.31 crore with regard to Buddha Nullah would first be presented to the cabinet for necessary clearance. This was stated recently by the Local Government Minister, Punjab, Navjot Singh Sidhu at the Punjab Municipal Bhawan in Chandigarh on the occasion of inking of an MoU with e-Governance Foundation (e-Gov) of Nandan Nilekani regarding the managing of electronic governance of Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) throughout Punjab. He batted for adopting the model already adopted and executed with aplomb by noted environmentalist Sant Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal in this regard. He also elaborated that the Amritsar dump which has been in existence since the past 2 decades would be cleaned up during the course of next 3 years and a scientific study spanning 2 months would be undertaken in this connection. Sounding a warning note to those indulging in environmental pollution, Sidhu said that those establishments/concerns excreting the untreated water and other waste would be strictly dealt with in accordance with the law.

It may be recalled here that in the year 2013 the then Union Minister for Environment and Forest Jairam Ramesh had laid the foundation stone of the multi-crore bio-remediation project for cleaning of Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana, which is called and known as Manchester of India. It may be mentioned here that this Rs.16-crore project was fully funded by the Union Ministry for Environment of the Indian government. Efforts were made and crores of rupees were spent but the things remained unchanged. During a visit on banks of Buddha Nullah today (March 1, 2018), City Air News observed that the situation does seem to be different. On one hand, Ludhiana is included in the list of Smart City and on the other hand concrete and time-bound efforts are not being made by the successive governments to make Buddha Nullah pollution free. Old timers say that there was a time when the waters in Buddha Nullah were totally neat and clean and people even used to take bath in it. However, the situation got bad to worse due to pollution in Buddha Nullah at a later stage. If one visits on the banks of Buddha Nullah one can easily understand that people residing around Buddha Nullah are living in hell like situation. God knows when the situation will change and people will find Buddha Nullah a total pollution-free.