Pollution abatement of Basantar River in Samba
*Untreated sewage still being discharged in river
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Dec 2: Even several years after the National Green Tribunal’s explicit directives and repeated announcements from the Government, no project has been formulated till date for pollution abatement of Basantar River in Samba as a result of which untreated sewage is being continuously discharged into this tributary of Ravi River.
Several years back, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) imposed a penalty of Rs 5 crore on the Jammu and Kashmir State Industrial Development Corporation (SIDCO) for failing to stop discharge of effluents and dumping of waste in Basantar River.
Similarly, the green panel directed the Samba Municipal Council to pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for failing to set up a sewage treatment plant and stop discharge of untreated sewage in the river. Moreover, the NGT issued directions for taking all necessary measures for pollution abatement of Basantar River.
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It is pertinent to mention here that five kilometers stretch of Basantar River from Samba up to Chak Manga Rakwal has been declared as polluted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
“After being reprimanded by the NGT, the SIDCO got four Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) installed but till date discharge of untreated sewage in the river has not been checked as a result of which five kilometers stretch of Basantar River continues to remain polluted”, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
Not only NGT directives, even J&K Government on several occasions made announcements for chalking out action plan for pollution abatement of Basantar River on the lines of Devika River in Udhampur. “However, the NGT directives as well as Government announcements have failed to become reality so far mainly because of slackness of all the concerned agencies”, sources informed.
EXCELSIOR contacted several officials of the Jammu and Kashmir Pollution Control Committee and they admitted continuous discharge of untreated sewage into the river from the residential areas in the vicinity of Basantar River in Samba. However, they fanned ignorance about formulation of any project by Urban Environment Engineering Department (UEED) and Municipal Council Samba, which function under the administrative control of Housing and Urban Development Department.
An officer of UEED, when contacted, said, “long time back an action plan was formulated for pollution abatement of Basantar River but the same failed to receive approvals from the concerned quarters”, adding “at present, we don’t have any project to check pollution of river”.
While wishing anonymity, the officer further said, “UEED has not received formal instructions from the senior officers about preparing some pollution abatement project. May be some announcements were made but formal discussions have not been initiated till date”.
Sources further informed, “following the NGT directives even River Rejuvenation Committee was constituted by the Government and the committee fixed 6 to 18 months time-frame for all the concerned agencies for abatement of pollution in the identified stretches of nine major rivers and streams of Jammu and Kashmir including Basantar River in the Action Plan submitted to the Central Pollution Control Board”.
The objective behind the Action Plan was to bring the polluted river stretches to be fit at least for bathing purpose.
“However, what happened thereafter vis-à-vis implementation of Action Plan is not known to any of the concerned authorities”, sources said, adding “at least those rivers in respect of which explicit directives have been issued by the green panel of the country should have received due attention of the concerned authorities so that objectives behind knocking the doors of the NGT could have been achieved”.
They further said, “unless Urban Environment Engineering Department, Municipal Council Samba and J&K Pollution Control Committee function in coordinated manner the pollution abatement of Basantar is not possible”.
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