HimVani
Mandi (Sept 21): With an inordinate delay in setting up of the Rs 4-crore Garbage Treatment Project and dumping of filth and scrap on the banks of Beas, the water pollution has assumed alarming proportions in the second biggest town of the state.
The Beas water is lifted to Motipur Water Works near the local gurdwara and it caters to the drinking water supply requirement of over 90 per cent population of the town.
Health authorities have cautioned that polluted water is “dangerous” to the health of the town people and any epidemic can break out in this thickly populated town.
Nagar Parishad chief, Sheela Sonkhla, laments that necessary infrastructure and vehicles, etc, had already been purchased by the Parishad, but the agency of the central government assigned to set up the plant by the State Pollution Board, Shimla, is sleeping over the matter.
Nagar Parishad is presently forced to dump garbage at Kawari on NH-21, upstream of Beas, and its entire seepage of the filth percolates to the river, thus polluting the river water.
The Save Mandi Sanghrash Samili chief, Lakshmender Singh, has warned if the Nagar Parishad and the state pollution board did not take immediate remedial measures to change the existing dumping site from the bank of the river and failed to set up garbage treatment, the matter would be taken up with Himachal Pradesh High Court.
