Journalism of Courage
THE LEAKAGE of molasses from a sugar mill in Gurdaspur district into the Beas River recently, which led to the death of a large number of fishes and also contaminated the water, has become a major issue for political parties to highlight in the run-up to the Shahkot Assembly bypoll.
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal has alleged at many public meetings during the poll campaign that it was “willful discharge of industrial effluents from the sugar mill.”
At several villages including at Umrewal bille, Haripur, Sangowal, Jhugia, Adraman villages and Mehatpur City, the SAD president said it was “shocking that no action had been taken in the matter.”
AAP candidate Rattan Singh, too, has raised the issue. “Neither SAD nor Congress parties could provide clean and safe drinking water to the people of Punjab and on the contrary, even the natural water sources got highly polluted during their tenure in power in the past,” he told voters.
“If they cannot even fulfill a basic need, that of clean water, what else will they be able to do for you ,” Rattan Singh asked.
Punjab Cabinet Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa, while travelling across villages of Shahkot Assembly constituency, has said the state government would “clean all the natural water sources, including rivers of Punjab.”
Meanwhile, in Seechewal village, people have glued posters outside their houses saying that they will not vote for those who won’t stop ‘contaminating’ rivers and rivulets.
Central team should visit for study: Sukhbir
SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal Monday alleged that the Punjab government was “patronising an environmental massacre in Punjab by turning a blind eye to the man-made ecological disaster caused by the Chadha Sugar Industries and owners of the distillery.”
In a letter to Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Harsh Vardhan, Badal described the pollution of Beas River water and the death of aquatic life in water bodies in Punjab as “a shocking example of the insensitivity of the offending parties.”
He said a central team should be deputed for a spot study of the situation. “That team should assess the extent of the damage so far and likely to be caused in coming days and determine the scale of compensation to be paid to the affected people.”
Another AAP leader joins SAD
A day after two AAP leaders joined the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), AAP Adampur candidate Hansraj Rana Monday joined SAD in the presence of party president Sukhbir Singh Badal.
Speaking about his decision to join SAD, the AAP leader said that he got thoroughly disillusioned with AAP because it’s leadership professed idealism but indulged in rampant corruption. He said he was also distraught by the fact that the party did not respect Punjabis or their sentiments and believed in dictatorial control over the AAP Punjab unit.
Rana added that the other main reason why he chose to join SAD because this was the only party which had taken utmost care to plan and implement pro-Dalit schemes. He said that Shagun scheme and SC scholarship scheme had been discontinued by the Congress government.
Sukhbir Badal while welcoming Rana into the Akali fold, said his entry would strengthen the party at the grass-root level in the Doaba region. He said Rana had decided to give unconditional support to SAD and would be given due recognition in the party-ENS
