LUDHIANA: Officials from Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and Ludhiana municipal corporation (MC) conducted a joint visit in Jainpur for collecting the samples from the green bridges constructed on Buddha Nullah for the cleaning of water with the help of bio-remediation process. The CPCB has been asking the civic officials for taking over the annual maintenance of these bridges as around two years have passed since the project was completed.
The Union ministry of forest and environment had funded the Rs 16-crore project for Ludhiana under which five bridges were constructed on Buddha Nullah and bacteria were released in the water for the treatment. The project was announced by former Union environment and forest minister Jairam Ramesh during his visit to city in 2010 and it was formally inaugurated on April 23, 2011. It was supposed to be completed by 2014 but owing to the row of payment between CPCB and Shrishti Eco Research Institute, Pune, which was handling the project, it was completed only by 2016.
Since the completion of the project, CPCB has been demanding MC to handle the annual maintenance for which MC had committed and was had even earmarked Rs 1.5 crore in their budget. However, the civic officials claimed they are doubtful regarding success of this project and they had raised the demand for joint sampling from near the bridges for seeing the results.
The executive engineer of MC Nachhatar Singh said on Friday the CPCB director Sharanjit Singh had reached the city along with other engineers and from 7am till 7pm samples were collected from the drain. The samples have been sent for testing in Mohali and it is expected that reports will come in the next 15 days, he added.
