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Govt didn’t do it in years, Seechewal took 15 minutes
WSN Network

JALANDHAR: For years, the residents had complained of the stink from the drain, but an apathetic regime did not listen and the trade did not bother. The leather tanneries continued to spew out the toxic till Punjab's good samaritan volunteer baba decided that enough was enough. 

When he decided, it took 15 minutes for residents and Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal's dera team to stop the discharge of toxic water from the local tanneries towards their villages. Carrying out an exemplary eco-drive for the welfare of over 70 villages falling along the Kala Sanghian drain, a dedicated workforce of environmentalist Baba Seechewal blocked a portion at Nahal village here by creating a barrier across the points from where the untreated waste from surgical and leather complex was being released via several low-lying outlets.  

The baba and his kar sewaks stepped into the dark, smelly slur to put in sacks full of soil into the drain and create a barrier, thereby checking the discharge into the drain that further leads to Chitti Bein, Sutlej and Harike headworks. Water treated by an under-capacity treatment plant was, however, allowed to flow into the drain.  

The drive was executed so smartly that the baba even managed to hoodwink the administration that, too, had reached the spot trying to apparently pressurise him against carrying it out. The officials were taken away for a round along the drain by the baba's followers on the pretext of showing them various such outlets, when the exercise began. Tanners helplessly watched the exercise. Among the bigwigs who own tanneries are Avinash Chander, chief parliamentary secretary and Amandeep Sandhu, chairman of Punjab Leather Federation. 

Seechewal declared that a similar obstruction would be created across a drain at Jamsher on March 31 in case the industries in residential areas around there did not stop the release of waste.

27 February 2008
 

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