Jan 29, 2025: Fact Recorder
Ghaggar water is not suitable for bathing even before and after the point where the Sukhna Choe merges into it in Zirakpur. A joint committee constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has found that the river water contained from two to three times the prescribed limit of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), making it unfit for outdoor bathing.
Members of the committee (or nominated members in absence of joint committee members) and representatives of the departments concerned carried out a survey and collected samples from Sukhna Choe on December 5 and 6 last year to identify the polluting sources.
The committee collected samples from 16 sites, including Raipur Khurd, Baltana bridge, the Kalka Road bridge near Sohi Banquet in Zirakpur. It observed that there were a number of slums near Mansa Davi Complex, Rajiv Colony, Indira Colony in Haryana and near Sohi Banquet hall, which were directly discharging their solid as well as liquid waste into the choe.
According to a representative of the Panchkula Metropolitan Development Authority (PMDA), a local drain carrying untreated domestic sewage from the Panchkula areas, namely Rajiv Colony, Indira Colony and Budanpur village, falls into the Sukhna Choe. The committee had taken samples from the Panchkula drain at the Vikas Nagar bridge. It was found that the BOD and total suspended solids (TSS) levels were not as per the general standards for discharge of environmental pollutants into inland surface.
Later, the committee visited the Baltana bridge, where the drain is cumulatively flowing with treated water from Chandigarh and untreated sewage from the Panchkula drain, and took samples. It was found that the BOD level there was also not as per the general standards.
The committee also collected samples from the upstream and downstream of the Ghaggar river where the Sukhna Choe merges with it near the Ambala-Chandigarh highway bridge in Zirakpur. The analysis revealed that the pH value of the river water upstream and downstream was okay for outdoor bathing. However, the BOD value was not as per the primary water quality criteria for outdoor bathing at both these locations.
Recommendations by the Joint Committee
The committee suggested the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh should ensure regular cleaning of drains, The UT Administration along with the MC should install iron nets at all culvert points where roads are crossing the drain to prevent people from throwing solid waste in it.
The Punjab Pollution Control Board should issue directions to the Municipal Council, Zirakpur, to take corrective measures in a time-bound manner to ensure operation and maintenance of STP so that there was no disposal of untreated effluent into the Ghaggar.
The Panchkula MC should ensure operation of the STPs that lead effluent into Sukhna Choe through drains.
