Tewari seeks expanding scope of Buddha Nullah Bio-remediation project

Ludhiana, August 12, 2013: The Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari has sought revamping and expanding the scope of the Bio-remediation project for cleaning of the Buddha Nullah. Tewari met the Union Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan in New Delhi today and apprised her about the undue delay in the completion of the cleaning of the project.

He also brought to the notice of the Union Minister the impediments put by the state government by not only being non-cooperative but also for putting repeated hurdles in that led to the delay in the project.

Natarajan assured Tewari that she will take up the matter with the state government and ensure that whatever difficulties and hindrances are being put get removed at the earliest.

Giving details of the project, he said, through his sustained efforts the then Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh accompanied by a team of experts had visited the Nullah and they had come to the conclusion that it may be worthwhile to apply the Bio-remediation technology and technique which had been experimented with for cleaning the Udaipur Lake.

He said, a project worth Rs. 16 odd crores was approved by the Ministry with the Central Pollution Control Board being charged with the responsibility as the Nodal agency for implementing the project. The project was inaugurated on 23rd April, 2011 by Jairam Ramesh.

He said, however, he was surprised during a personal inspection on October 24, 2012 to learn that the scope of the project had been narrowed down to 6 Kms from the original 16 Kms. These 6 Kms are towards the end of the Buddha Nullah before it empties itself into the river Satluj, he said.

“While I can fully understand that it is important to mitigate the effluent that flow into River Satluj. However, what confounds me is that for all intents and purposes this project completely by-passes the 10 odd Kms which are intrinsic to its course through city which has a thick population residing on its either side”, he regretted.

Tewari said, this certainly was not the manner in which the project was originally conceived and supposed to be implemented. “For all intents and purposes this project does not really mitigate the pollution which impacts the dense human habitation on either side of the Buddha Nullah as it flows through the city of Ludhiana”, he said.

Urging the minister to expand its scope, he said, “I would be obliged if you could direct the CPCB or the concerned officials in your Ministry to comprehensively and holistically review the scope of this project to ensure that it really benefits the 25 lakh odd residents of Ludhiana city by cleaning up the entire 16 Kms stretch and not only the last 6 kms”.