Gujarat rivers' highly toxic discharge cause 'great risk' to livelihood in towns, villages

By Jag Jivan
In a letter to the chairman and member-secretary, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Government of India’s anti-pollution watchdog, and to officials its Gujarat counterpart, senior environmentalists Rohit Prajapati and Krishnakant of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), have said that one of the state’s biggest rivers, Mahisagar, which flows off the state's cultural capital Vadodara, has turned into “disaster in motion.”
Forwarding videos and photographs taken on March 28, 2021 of the river at village Dabka, Padra talula,Vadodara district, in a letter they told the senior officials that these “raise basic questions for the concerned authorities about their commitment to stop polluting the rivers” which are “dying” in Gujarat, as river pollution “has reached at irreversible levels.”
The letter regrets, Mahisagar river as also Sabarmati, which flows through Ahmedabad, discharge pollution approximately at an identical spot in the Gulf of Khambhat. Both carry “high concentration of sewage and industrial effluents, which gets continuously and unabatedly dumped into Gulf of Khambhat, round the clock”, it adds.
“This confluence is particularly alarming and worrisome as we fear that the tidal activities in the Gulf of Khambhat drive the highly toxic and polluted waters inland at the estuaries of Mahisagar and Sabarmati rivers, causing tremendous risk to the settlements, villages, towns, lives, and livelihoods in that region”, the environmentalists say.

The letter suspects, “It is possible that effluent discharged through River Sabarmati into Gulf of Khambhat may also be finding its way up in the Mahisagar River as indicated by floating chemical foam entering the Mahisagar with the tides.”

Pointing out that “continuous and voluminous discharge of untreated effluents and sewage” has been going on for “a period of more than three decades, which might form toxic sediments in the stretches along the Gulf of Khambhat”, the letter blames the Vadodara Enviro Channel Limited’s “continued non-compliance of Gujarat Pollution Control board (GPCB) prescribed norms for this.
Urging CPCB and GPCB authorities “to take prompt action and investigate the matter in utmost urgency through a technically sound and independent committee of experts, with close monitoring on a daily basis”, the environmentalists warn, “If you are unable to stop the pollution”, it would amount to the contempt of the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal orders, and would result in “suitable further action on our part.”

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

The Vande Mataram debate and the politics of manufactured controversy

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* The recent Vande Mataram debate in Parliament was never meant to foster genuine dialogue. Each political party spoke past the other, addressing its own constituency, ensuring that clips went viral rather than contributing to meaningful deliberation. The objective was clear: to construct a Hindutva narrative ahead of the Bengal elections. Predictably, the Lok Sabha will likely expunge the opposition’s “controversial” remarks while retaining blatant inaccuracies voiced by ministers and ruling-party members. The BJP has mastered the art of inserting distortions into parliamentary records to provide them with a veneer of historical legitimacy.

Proposals for Babri Masjid, Ram Temple spark fears of polarisation before West Bengal polls

By A Representative A political debate has emerged in West Bengal following recent announcements about plans for new religious structures in Murshidabad district, including a proposed mosque to be named Babri Masjid and a separate announcement by a BJP leader regarding the construction of a Ram temple in another location within Behrampur.

Ahmedabad's Sabarmati riverfront under scrutiny after Subhash Bridge damage

By Rosamma Thomas* Large cracks have appeared on Subhash Bridge across the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad, close to the Gandhi Ashram . Built in 1973, this bridge, named after Subhash Chandra Bose , connects the eastern and western parts of the city and is located close to major commercial areas. The four-lane bridge has sidewalks for pedestrians, and is vital for access to Ashram Road , Ellis Bridge , Gandhinagar and the Sabarmati Railway Station .

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

No action yet on complaint over assault on lawyer during Tirunelveli public hearing

By A Representative A day after a detailed complaint was filed seeking disciplinary action against ten lawyers in Tirunelveli for allegedly assaulting human rights lawyer Dr. V. Suresh, no action has yet been taken by the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, according to the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL).

From natural farming to fair prices: Young entrepreneurs show a new path

By Bharat Dogra There have been frequent debates on agro-business companies not showing adequate concern for the livelihoods of small farmers. Farmers’ unions have often protested—generally with good reason—that while they do not receive fair returns despite high risks and hard work, corporate interests that merely process the crops produced by farmers earn disproportionately high profits. Hence, there is a growing demand for alternative models of agro-business development that demonstrate genuine commitment to protecting farmer livelihoods.

Myanmar prepares for elections widely seen as a junta-controlled exercise

By Nava Thakuria* Trouble-torn Myanmar (also known as Burma or Brahmadesh) is preparing for three-phase national elections starting on 28 December 2025, with results expected in January 2026. Several political parties—primarily proxies of the Burmese military junta—are participating, while Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) remains banned. Observers expect a one-sided contest where junta-backed candidates are likely to dominate.

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Search This Blog