National Green Tribunal on Tuesday issued notice to Uttar Pradesh Government over contaminated drinking water in six districts of western Uttar Pradesh. The Green court admitted a petition filed by Dr. Chandraveer Singh, president of Doaba Paryavaran Samiti, a Non-Governmental Organisation working on people’s access to clean drinking water.
Dr. Singh, in the petition, alleged negligence on part of the State government because of which lakhs of villagers in six districts - Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad and Saharanpur have been forced to drink contaminated water.
The Court sought response from the State Government and district magistrates of the six districts by April 22.
Dr. Singh, a retired scientist of Haryana Pollution Control Board claimed that drinking water in these six districts have poisonous substances like heavy metals which can cause dangerous and incurable diseases.
“The level of the heavy metals found in the water was objectionably high and was found to be in excess of the limit prescribed for drinking water. People in this region are dying of Cancer and suffer from various kinds of Cancer and other water borne diseases,” said Dr. Chandraveer.
“For instance the Arsenic concentration was reported very high in the drinking ground water. Consumption of Arsenic is highly dangerous and it can cripple a person if the said contaminated water is consumed for a considerable time,” he maintained while adding that such cases have been reported in village Sarora of District Baghpat where new born children were badly crippled.
The samples were collected randomly from different sites in all the districts, i.e. some from the hand pumps situated around the industrial areas and the others from the hand pumps situated in the villages near the banks of the rivers like Kali, Krishna and Hindon which flows through the region.
The samples were analyzed by recognised laboratories which have been approved by UP Pollution Control Board, Ministry of Enviornment and Forest
