| Issue 23 Vol I, September 15, 2006 | Archive |
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Punjab’s Contaminated Environment Threatens
Life Punjab is deep into a man made crisis. Its ecosystem is contaminated. Its cities and now even small towns and villages are the most dirty unlivable places. Its saline and chemical laden water in many places is unfit for human consumption. With a bare 3 per cent land under forest against 33 per cent recommended by experts, its air is becoming more polluted. Its fast pace of urbanisation would create further imbalance unless it is planned in measured way as by 2050 over 75 per cent of the population would be in towns and cities requiring huge chunks of farm land, water and sanitation. Are we ready to face the consequences of ill planned growth with everyone wishing to live in comfort and if possible in style?
The writing on the wall is clear if we care to read. Punjab is in the midst of an ecological chaos and unprecedented environmental health crisis. The Green Revolution and the resultant prosperity have seriously affected the ecology of Punjab on one hand and the health of its people on the other. Punjabi males are drinking like fish. During 2006 Punjabis would end up spending a whooping between Rs 1700 to 1800 crore on liquor, consuming some 24 crore bottles of both Indian Made Foreign liquor (IMFL) and country-made liquor. In addition they make big effort to distill in their farms and at homes, some 30 crore bottles of hard liquor of unspecified strength. At the same time the Grain Machine has started rusting and the repercussions have begun to show up like scars on the landscape of the land of the gurus and rishis as they say. Depleted groundwater aquifers on one hand and the widespread salinity on the other have slowed down the agricultural growth rate besides deteriorating water quality badly affecting human existence. The myth about Punjab's glorious past is beginning to unfold. This petering out Green Revolution is a chemical centered agriculture system. The consumption of chemical fertilizers (NPK) increased from 38 kg hectare in 1970-71 to 184 kg per hectare in 1999-2000. At Present the average consumption of these highly poisonous chemicals in Punjab is 1 kg per hectare against the national average of 350g per hectare. Punjab has 1.5 per cent of the Geographical Area of India and 2.5 per cent Agriculture Area. But the total cropping area is 4.2 per cent of the country. This means that 83 per cent of the area is under the plough with a cropping intensity 188 per cent. No wonder Punjab consumed ten per cent of the total chemical fertilizer consumed in the country and 18 per cent of the pesticides. Its tractor population is also 24 per cent of India. On single day, the officials counted in Moga mandi some one lakh tractors which had been parked for sale by the farmers. In 1950-51 Punjab has only 2000 spray pumps whereas today the number crosses 6, 00,000. Apart from this Punjab has highest tube well density in the country. It has highest probability of pesticide exposure largest % of its population. Food is contaminated with these chemicals including animal and human breast milk. Vegetables are sprayed with these chemicals prior to sending them to market. Worst hit are cabbage, cauliflower, brinjal, tomato, ladyfinger. Farmers dip the vegetables in a cocktail of pesticides before taking their produce to the market. The village eco-system of Punjab is contaminated and almost the entire food chains become toxic leading its people to a chronic pesticide exposure. It is also well-established that cancers and pesticides are linked and that certain types of cancer are related to pesticides more than other factors. The higher incidence of pesticides-related cancers [within various types of cancers] in the Malwa belt is admitted by medical experts. Pesticides, many of which are endocrine disruptors, teratogens, mutagens, cholinesterase inhibitors and so on, are known to cause a variety of other human health impacts too. A study by Greenpeace India in 2003 showed that the developmental abilities of children in high-pesticide consuming areas like Bathinda are significantly lower than children in low pesticide-consuming areas, pointing out that the next generation of the farming community in the state is also being put at risk with pesticides. Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) sponsored epidemiological study done by Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education Research (PGIMER) Chandigarh has indicated the rise in cancer cases in Cotton belt of Punjab. The study indicates that Cotton belt of Punjab is engulfed by lethal pesticides and causing major health problems. Though this study was done in one Talwandi Sabo block of Bathinda district but the similar symptoms are emerging from entire cotton belt. The situation is so grim that village after village is reporting cancer, reproductive disorder, birth of mentally retarded children and other pesticide related diseases. The PPCB-PGIMER study clearly indicts pesticides for high prevalence of cancer in the area. Study found both tap and groundwater laced with carcinogenic chemicals. Tap water contains high content of arsenic, chromium and iron. The ground water also was replete with arsenic, chromium, nickel and ferrous. Even these deadly pesticides had seeped into locally-grown vegetables as well. The cauliflower has toxicities with Heptachlor Endoepoxide, Chlorpyrifos, Alpha Endosulfan and Alfa HCH. It is worrisome factor that traces of Persistent Organic Pollutants [POPs] are found in Punjab. This is slow poisoning of Punjab. POPs are banned in majority of countries. POPs are known Endocrine disrupters and the main reason behind neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, reproductive disorders, testicular cancer, and congenital malformations. Even the motherhood is challenged by POPs through foetotoxicity. Kheti Virasat Mission volunteers came across the frightening truth in Rampura block of Bathinda district in year 2002. Several villages are facing acute health problems in this block. The high cases of cancer, reproductive health disorder, congenital abnormities and physical – mental illness is a common factor here. More over the contaminated ground water is also aggravating the devastating situation. Now the cancer cases are reported from other parts of cotton belt too. Villages in Lambi, Giddarbaha, Malout and Abohar are falling in the clutches of deadly cancer. Another aspect of environmental health crisis is that skeletal fluorosis is fast taking the greater cotton belt in its grip. Which is more serious issue to be tackled urgently? All this would require urgent attention of the government, public health experts and civil rights groups as life is under threat. To build a strong peoples' movement for participatory crisis mitigation one has to educate the people of Punjab on environmental and occupational health. Looking at whole scenario Kheti Virasat Mission proposes a massive awareness campaign on Environmental and Occupational Health with active participation of medical and health professionals, medical associations and faculty members of life sciences of various medical colleges, universities, and engineering colleges. The Campaign shall also cover farmers, rural youth clubs, eco-clubs in various civil society groups, environmental NGOs, farmers unions and women groups. |
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Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at any time in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms. The East Antarctic core is the longest, deepest ice column yet extracted and its in-depth analysis of air bubbles trapped in a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow shows current greenhouse gas concentrations are unparalleled. The ice core comes from a region of the White Continent known as Dome Concordia (Dome C). It has been drilled out by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica), a 10-country consortium. The column's value to science is the tiny pockets of ancient air that were locked into its millennia of accumulating snowflakes. Scientists have now gone the full way through the column, back another 150,000 years. Each slice of this now compacted snow records a moment in Earth history, giving researchers a direct measure of past environmental conditions. Project scientists say its contents indicate humans could be bringing about dangerous climate changes. Dr Eric Wolff from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said "My point would be that there's nothing in the ice core that gives us any cause for comfort." "There's nothing that suggests that the Earth will take care of the increase in carbon dioxide. The ice core suggests that the increase in carbon dioxide will definitely give us a climate change that will be dangerous,” BBC quoted him saying. The "scary thing", he added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years. |
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Recently The
Tribune did an excellent service by exposing the threat from the Buddha Nala
in Ludhiana to human existence and the Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder singh
made all kinds of sweet noises. I can assure you nothing would happen.
Newspapers had written about this in the past. Late Chief Minister Beant
Singh had earmarked substantial money and appointed a nodal officer as did
his successors. Who does not know what the newspapers have written about
this poor Buddha Nala whose green grass banks were once source of pleasure
for leisured walks. Yet nothing happens to clean it. How could Sant Balbir
Singh Seechewal inspire people to clean the Kali Bain? And, all government
efforts and the public money get wasted. Corruption could be one reason. But
lack of responsibility and sheer apathy for public works are being reasons.