Punjab government has sought technical help from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) to tackle the growing problem of uranium in ground water, particularly in the southwest region of the agricultural state.
Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said Tuesday that the Punjab government would tackle the problem of uranium in ground water on top priority.
Addressing a gathering at Sangrur town, 120 km from here, he said that Punjab, which had already fought a battle against insurgency and suffered because of India-Pakistan wars, would now launch a war against uranium pollution in water which was only specific to Punjab.
A recent report had pointed out to the presence of uranium in ground water in Punjab. Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had also confirmed the same.
Scores of people in the districts of Bathinda, Mansa, Sangrur and others have died or are suffering from cancer and other diseases owing to uranium contamination.
Badal said that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had already requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to allocate a special budget to tackle the problem of uranium as it has been done in the case of arsenic and fluoride contamination in other states.
He said the BARC team was trying to locate the source of uranium contamination and the Punjab government was taking all possible measures to provide reverse osmosis (RO) system in the affected areas.
The problem of contaminated drinking water is already plaguing some districts of Punjab for over five years. The Chief Minister should make ‘on priority basis’into ‘immediate’. He said that reverse osmosis is going to be set up to reduce or avoid contaminants. by now tests should have been done to confirm that R.O. process works in the case of the affected water sources. Small units for that purpose are already available in the market. The feed water has to be clear for using this process. Moreover, in the working of R.O. units lot of water is required. Is that the case? the amounts involved do not require waiting for central financial assistance. The state can easily undertake that. There are other processes too for this purpose. One is based on use of ion-exchange resin bed. The other is less complex. it uses simple chemical precipitation after adding iron salt or aluminium salt, a process commonly used for water purification. these processes can remove more metals than simply uranium. But if the health problem is connected with organic substances like pesticides, insecticides etc. these processes do not work. Unless a multipronged approach is undertaken the problem persists for decades. uranium contamination of water is faced in some other countries also, like USA, Canada and Australia. India has already faced problems due to arsenic and fluoride and experience at those sites can also help.