Environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal has invited Parbatbhai Savabhai Patel, the chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee on water resources, to visit Punjab to study the water crisis in the state.
During a recent meeting, Seechewal, a Rajya Sabha MP, who is also a member of the parliamentary committee, told Patel to bring along all other members of the committee to study the issue.
Known as ‘Eco Baba’, Seechewal told Patel that toxic water from cities and factories was falling into rivers and streams of Punjab due to which people in Malwa and parts of Rajasthan were suffering from cancer.
Sant Seechewal told the chairperson of the committee that Punjab was the only state which fed the country in a big way. In a way, the farmers of Punjab used its water for the county and now the state was facing a water crisis, he said.
He demanded the parliamentary committee prepare a detailed report on the drying up of rivers and groundwater of Punjab during this visit and send it to the central water resources department and place it in the Parliament.
Sant Seechewal said according to the report of the Central Ground Water Board, the groundwater of Punjab will go down by 1,000 feet by 2039.
Seechewal also told the chairperson that he was doing karseva to the holy Bein (rivulet) since the year 2000 with the help of the devotees. From 2008, he was making people aware of the polluted water of Punjab, he said.
Recently the parliamentary committee on water resources visited Kolkata, Port Blair and Chennai and inspected the polluted water flowing in the natural water sources. Twelve Members of Parliament and senior officials of the Central Ground Water Board participated in the visit.
