Punjab, which is one of the richest states in India, is battling acute water pollution, particularly attributed to chemical toxicity. There has been an increase in the number of deaths due to cancer in the Malwa region, which has sent shock waves throughout the state. It was found that the water in Punjab has a shocking level of uranium content. Uranium poisoning in Punjab first came to existence in March 2009, when a South African toxicologist, Dr Carin Smit along with UK-based Defeat Autism, while visiting Faridkot city in Punjab, India, had hair and urine samples of 149 children affected with birth abnormalities including physical deformities, neurological and mental disorders, sent to Microtarce Mineral Lab, Germany. Though doctors expected heavy metal toxicity, what they were surprised to find was high levels of uranium in the samples, and in one case more than 60 times the maximum safe limit.
In June 2010, studies carried out amongst mentally retarded children in the Malwa region of Punjab, revealed 87% of children below 12 years and 82% beyond that age having uranium levels high enough to cause diseases, also uranium levels in samples of three kids from Kotkapura and Faridkot were 62, 44 and 27 times higher than normal. Subsequently, the Baba Farid Centre for Special Children, Faridkot, sent samples of five children from the worst-affected village, Teja Rohela, near Fazilka, which has over 100 children which are congenitally mentally and physically challenged, to the same lab.
A known environment law activist Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal, the man who brought to life so many rivers in the Majha area, stated that anti-pollution laws stay in the newspapers only and very little efforts are taken to prevent water and air pollution. According to Seechewal, there are many harmful chemicals, such as cyanide, that are flowing into the rivers, mostly from factories situated in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Phagwara. Due to this, drinking water sources have become polluted and resulted in widespread prevalence of diseases like cancer in the Malwa region and the adjoining areas in Rajasthan. In Muktsar, you can just find the depressing statistics in the home district of the Punjab Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal. There were 1,074 deaths due to cancer between 2001 and November 2009. In Lambi, Badal’s home constituency, there were 211 cancer deaths during the same period.
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