Aca­d­e­mi­cians, en­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivists, re­li­gious ac­tivists led by Baba Seechewal and Gi­ani Ke­wal Singh staged a spir­ited march in Lud­hi­ana to en­force a Green Man­i­festo for all po­lit­i­cal par­ties and can­di­dates con­test­ing elec­tions for the Pun­jab As­sem­bly Elec­tions 2022. The team com­pris­ing a galaxy of ac­tivists across Pun­jab are mak­ing con­certed ef­forts to en­sure that the po­lit­i­cal par­ties heed their plea in the in­ter­ests of the fu­ture of Pun­jab. The list of is­sues pre­sented by the  Pun­jab Vatavaran Chetna Lehar and PAC Sut­lej Mat­te­wara teams is a step in the right di­rec­tion.  Pre­sent­ing the agenda, the man­i­festo asks search­ing ques­tions from po­lit­i­cal par­ties, which need pon­der­ance by those not con­test­ing elec­tions also. The World Sikh News pre­sents the full doc­u­ment here.

Pun­jab needs a pol­lu­tion-free and clean model of de­vel­op­ment. The be­fool­ing of Pun­jabis by mar­ket­ing de­struc­tion as progress and pro­mot­ing a model of de­vel­op­ment which is pol­lut­ing and dam­ag­ing to our pre­cious nat­ural re­sources like wa­ter and air are cost­ing us dearly in terms of health. This needs to change now.

The Green Man­i­festo -drafted and en­dorsed by Gur­preet Singh Chand­baja of Bhai Ghanayia Can­cer Roko Seva So­ci­ety and Naroa Pun­jab Manch, Farid­kot, Col CM Lakhan­pal, Sang­harsh Com­mit­tee, PAC Sut­lej & Mat­te­wara Jun­gle, Lud­hi­ana, Ran­jodh Singh, Ram­garhia Ed­u­ca­tional Coun­cil, Lud­hi­ana, Jaswinder Singh Ad­vo­cate, Akal Pu­rakh Ki Fauj, Am­rit­sar, Dr A.S Mann, Sci­en­tific Aware­ness And So­cial Wel­fare Fo­rum, San­grur, Ms Harpreet Soin, Lud­hi­ana Cares Ladies So­ci­ety, Lud­hi­ana, Kul­tar Singh Sand­hwan, MLA Kotka­pura, Bhai Ghanayia Can­cer Roko Seva So­ci­ety, Farid­kot, Mo­hin­der­pal Loomba, Chair­man, Rural NGO, Moga, Kapil Arora, Pres­i­dent, Coun­cil of En­gi­neers, Ms Puja Sen Gupta, Earth Care So­ci­ety, Dr Daler Singh, Dis­trict Agri­cu­ture Of­fi­cer (Re­tired) -Vat­tan Vala Jhona Ex­pert, Kuldeep Singh Chu­na­gra, Naroa Pun­jab Manch, Pa­tran, Pa­tiala, Kuldeep Singh Khaira, Vig­i­lant Cit­i­zens Fo­rum,Lud­hi­ana, Mo­hin­der Singh Sekhon, Pun­jabi Bhasha Pasaar Bhaichara, Lud­hi­ana, Shamin­der Singh Lon­gowal, Na­ture Hu­man Cen­tric Peo­ple’s Move­ment, Dr Aman­deep Singh Bains, RBS Roots, PAC Sut­lej & Mat­te­wara Jun­gle, Jaski­rat Singh, un­der the aegis of Pun­jab Vatavaran Chetna Lehar and PAC Sut­lej Mat­te­wara pre­sents its views to open dis­cus­sion and de­bate on these is­sues.

GREEN MAN­I­FESTO FOR PUN­JAB 2022

1. Mat­te­wara Tex­tile Park / Mod­ern In­dus­trial Park, KoomKalan: It’s a very in­ap­pro­pri­ate choice of lo­ca­tion given the eco­log­i­cal sen­si­tiv­ity and prox­im­ity of Sut­lej which is a di­rect drink­ing wa­ter source of mil­lions on one side and Mat­te­wara for­est on the other.

What will your govt do to change the lo­ca­tion or can­cel­la­tion of this pro­ject if elected?

2. In­dus­trial pol­icy to pro­mote only clean in­dus­tries: Pun­jab is an agrar­ian state that de­pends a lot on its wa­ter re­sources -both un­der­ground and sur­face wa­ter. This wa­ter needs to be pro­tected from pol­lu­tion via waste­water which orig­i­nates in both in­dus­trial and do­mes­tic sources. Pun­jab needs more clean in­dus­tries which do not dam­age its wa­ter re­serves and en­vi­ron­ment.

What will your gov­ern­men­t’s in­dus­trial pol­icy dis­cour­age pol­lut­ing in­dus­tries and en­cour­age clean in­dus­tries?

3. Forests: Pun­jab has only 3.6% area un­der for­est cover which is the low­est in the coun­try and even be­low Ra­jasthan. Most of this is near the Hi­machal bor­der and there is hardly any for­est in the plains.

What will be your for­est cover im­prove­ment pol­icy?

4. Trees in non-for­est ar­eas: Lots of trees are lost every year in the name of de­vel­op­ment, es­pe­cially new roads and road ex­pan­sion pro­jects. Lots of trees are cut even for gen­er­at­ing rev­enue by vil­lage pan­chay­ats and schools to sell tim­ber. There have been de­mands from many civil so­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tions for a com­plete ban on cut­ting of trees for at least 10 years in Pun­jab, as the cam­paign of “Rukh Bachao Manukh Bachao” cam­paign by Naroa Pun­jab Manch.

Will your gov­ern­ment im­pose and im­ple­ment such a ban on the cut­ting of trees?

5. Trees in farms: Over the years trees have re­duced in the farms across the state.
Do you have any ideas on pol­icy mea­sures to re­verse this trend?

6. Va­cant Lands: Va­cant gov­ern­ment lands like pan­chayat/​mu­nic­i­pal/​state gov­ern­ment lands should be planted with trees of na­tive va­ri­eties.

7. Bio­di­ver­sity: What will be your plan to pro­tect the bio­di­ver­sity of the state which is so far a com­pletely ne­glected is­sue?

8. Pro­tec­tion of rivers from il­le­gal min­ing: What will you do about it?

9. Pro­tec­tion of river flood plains: River flood plains are very im­por­tant and their pro­tec­tion is also very im­por­tant. They are be­ing dam­aged by il­le­gal min­ing, il­le­gal con­struc­tion ac­tiv­ity and even ill-planned schemes by the gov­ern­ment it­self where they are them­selves plan­ning con­crete jun­gles on flood plains of Sut­lej and other rivers in Pun­jab. The gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab has not even fol­lowed the di­rec­tions of the NGT to de­mar­cate the flood plains of its rivers.
What will your gov­ern­ment do about these flood plains?

10. Ac­tion plans sub­mit­ted to NGT: The gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab has sub­mit­ted many ac­tion plans to the Na­tional Green Tri­bunal -NGT in re­cent years like those for clean river Sut­lej, Beas, Ghag­gar, Air, Re­ju­ve­na­tion of ponds, clean­ing up of air, etc. The per­for­mance of the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, as of the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ments act­ing on those plans is not up to the mark as can be seen from the mas­sive fines be­ing im­posed by NGT on the Pun­jab Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board and ad­verse re­marks by mon­i­tor­ing com­mit­tees.

11. Sut­lej cleanup: The Sut­lej river is a drink­ing wa­ter source of mil­lions, which has been badly pol­luted by Bud­dha Nul­lah and many other drains. The STPs of mu­nic­i­pal au­thor­i­ties are not func­tion­ing prop­erly. There is no way to au­dit their per­for­mance. The in­dus­trial com­mon ef­flu­ent treat­ment plants of the dye­ing in­dus­try in Lud­hi­ana are un­der con­struc­tion for years de­spite as­sur­ances every few months by in­dus­tries and PPCB.

12. Bud­dha Dariya Clean Up: The 650-crore Bud­dha Nul­lah Re­ju­ve­na­tion Pro­ject is be­ing ex­e­cuted in a non-trans­par­ent man­ner which is a recipe for dis­as­ter. It has no em­i­nent sci­en­tist in the lead­er­ship po­si­tion to en­sure that the pro­ject de­liv­ers on its promise of re­ju­ve­nat­ing the Bud­dha Dariya.
What will you do to im­prove that?

13. Un­der­ground wa­ter: The qual­ity and wa­ter table of un­der­ground aquifers are de­grad­ing due to over-ex­trac­tion and un­der recharg­ing of un­der­ground wa­ter.
How will you pre­vent over-ex­trac­tion and how will you en­sure bet­ter recharge?

14. Non-Kaddu Paddy Tech­niques: What will your gov­ern­ment do to pop­u­lar­ize non-kaddu rice-grow­ing tech­niques for bet­ter rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing on the mas­sive 30000 sq kilo­me­tres of paddy fields (60% area of Pun­jab) and to pro­mote less wa­ter-con­sum­ing rice-grow­ing tech­niques which PAU has been re­luc­tant to do for many years?

15. Rain­wa­ter Har­vest­ing: What will be your pol­icy for new com­mer­cial, in­dus­trial and res­i­den­tial build­ings with re­gards to rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing?

16. De­ser­ti­fi­ca­tion of Pun­jab: Many gov­ern­ment and in­de­pen­dent stud­ies have sug­gested that Pun­jab is head­ing to­wards de­ser­ti­fi­ca­tion.

What will be your gov­t’s ac­tion plan to­wards that?

17. Pro­tec­tion and Re­ju­ve­na­tion of Ponds: Vil­lage ponds are be­ing lost due to en­croach­ment and are be­ing filled up. This is lead­ing to more pol­lu­tion in rivers and re­duc­tion in wet­lands in vil­lages and re­duced rain­wa­ter recharg­ing.

18. Air Qual­ity Is­sues: Pun­jab, es­pe­cially its cities suf­fer from bad air qual­ity. It in­cludes air pol­lu­tion from in­dus­trial, ve­hic­u­lar and farm sources.
What will be your plan to tackle these is­sues?

19. Dirty fu­els: Dirty fu­els like PET coke should be com­pletely banned in Pun­jab for in­dus­trial fuel or other pur­poses. Such a ban should also be ef­fec­tively en­sured on the ground via check­ing and mon­i­tor­ing.

20. Ve­hi­cles: What will be your pol­icy about ve­hi­cles es­pe­cially pol­lut­ing ve­hi­cles?

21. Ther­mal Power vs Clean Power: Pun­jab has been de­pen­dent mostly on ther­mal power which burns fos­sil fuel. This is both pol­lut­ing and emits green­house gases.
What will be your pol­icy to re­duce de­pen­dence on coal and re­duce pol­lu­tion from coal-fired plants?

22. Crop di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion: Over-de­pen­dence on paddy is not just an agri­cul­ture prob­lem, it’s also an en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sue. Over ex­trac­tion of ground­wa­ter is re­duc­ing wa­ter table. Deep un­der­ground wa­ter also has qual­ity is­sues. So much pro­duc­tion of paddy also causes dif­fi­cul­ties in man­ag­ing so much stub­ble which leads to stub­ble burn­ing.
What will be your crop di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion plan if elected?

23. Pes­ti­cides and agro­chem­i­cals: What will you do to re­duce the use of toxic chem­i­cals in farms es­pe­cially on food crops to pro­duce health­ier crops.

24. Sin­gle-use plas­tic: The gov­ern­ment of Pun­jab banned plas­tic carry bags in 2016 along with many other sin­gle-use plas­tic items. De­spite the ban, noth­ing was en­forced on the ground and every nook and cor­ner of Pun­jab has such banned items avail­able.
Will your gov­ern­ment im­ple­ment the ban in let­ter and spirit?

25. Solid waste man­age­ment: This is a huge prob­lem that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have mis­er­ably failed to man­age.
What will be your plan to im­prove this?

26. Open garbage burn­ing: This is a com­mon prac­tice that is banned on pa­per but like many other bans not fol­lowed.
How will you tackle this?

27. Pro­tec­tion of Green Belts: A lot of green belts are lost due to fraud­u­lent change of land use by land clauses by de­vel­op­ment au­thor­i­ties them­selves. Re­cently, the Lud­hi­ana Im­prove­ment Trust was caught and pre­vented from do­ing this on one green belt via the NGT by some NGOs.
What will your gov­ern­ment do to en­sure green belts are pro­tected, de­vel­oped and nur­tured?

28. Noise Pol­lu­tion: This is a se­ri­ous prob­lem for many, es­pe­cially in cities and towns and laws re­main unim­ple­mented.
What will you do about it?

29. Roof Top So­lar En­ergy: Roof Top So­lar power is a great way of gen­er­at­ing clean elec­tric­ity which must be pro­moted. The rooftop so­lar pol­icy of the state so far is not very en­cour­ag­ing. The state should ac­tively pro­mote clean elec­tric­ity pro­duc­tion via rooftop so­lar en­ergy by re­mov­ing red-tapism in the net-me­ter­ing pol­icy and en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to be­come self-suf­fi­cient in clean elec­tric­ity pro­duc­tion.
Will PEDA take this up se­ri­ously un­der your gov­ern­ment?

30. Cli­mate Change: Cli­mate change is hap­pen­ing around the world and gov­ern­ments are mostly re­spond­ing by putting their head in the sand. We have barely seen any dis­cus­sion or de­bate on this topic while world gov­ern­ments and ac­tivists are seized with this.
Cli­mate change is real, will your gov­ern­ment take any real steps in this re­gard?

31. Trans­parency and en­sur­ing zero cor­rup­tion in en­vi­ron­ment con­tracts: Cor­rup­tion is a way of life in gov­ern­ment pro­jects. Trans­parency is ab­horred by most of­fi­cials and they hold all doc­u­ments close to their chest. The doc­u­ments that should be in the pub­lic do­main are not even shared eas­ily un­der RTI. It’s a well-known fact that most of­fi­cials, bu­reau­crats and politi­cians even hold up pay­ments of the con­trac­tors en­gaged in con­tracts till they get their cut in the pay­ments. This nexus leads to poor qual­ity work and pro­ject fail­ures. Timely au­dit of works to en­sure qual­ity and also timely pay­ments to con­trac­tors af­ter the work is done should be en­sured so that no of­fi­cials are able to hold en­vi­ron­ment-re­lated pro­jects to ran­som and lead to their fail­ure.
How will you en­sure that en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­jects stop get­ting jeop­ar­dized for such rea­sons?
How will you en­sure full trans­parency, proper ex­e­cu­tion and ac­count­abil­ity in en­vi­ron­ment-re­lated pro­ject con­tracts?

32. Pun­jab Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Board: Per­ceived as the foun­tain­head of cor­rup­tion and in­ef­fi­ciency, this gov­ern­ment board is one of the root causes for en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion in Pun­jab.
What will your gov­ern­men­t’s pol­icy en­sure good gov­er­nance by the PPCB in so far as is­sues re­lat­ing to it?

33. En­gage­ment with en­vi­ron­ment ex­perts: So far most gov­ern­ment pro­jects get ex­e­cuted with­out any in­volve­ment of em­i­nent en­vi­ron­ment ex­perts. The gov­ern­ment be­lieves in do­ing every­thing through politi­cians and bu­reau­crats. One glar­ing ex­am­ple is that of the ‘Bud­dha Dariya Re­ju­ve­na­tion Pro­ject.’

34. En­vi­ron­ment Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­icy: En­vi­ron­ment is a com­pul­sory sub­ject in col­leges but it is not taken se­ri­ously by any­one. There are hardly any teach­ers for this sub­ject in col­leges and the exam is with­out cred­its.
How does your party pro­pose to change this?

35. Dairy clus­ters: Dairy clus­ters in cities and near rivers or other wa­ter bod­ies should be avoided as per NGT di­rec­tions. Ex­treme con­cen­tra­tion of cat­tle in a sin­gle clus­ter like in the Lud­hi­ana city cre­ates prob­lems for sewage net­works and STPs.
How will you en­sure an en­vi­ron­ment-friendly pol­icy on this?

36. Il­le­gal colonies: Il­le­gal colonies cre­ate a lot of pres­sure on the sewage sys­tems of le­gal colonies near them.
What will be your pol­icy on solid and liq­uid waste gen­er­ated by such colonies?

37. Green Helpline: A func­tion­ing sin­gle statewide helpline num­ber where com­plaints re­lated to the il­le­gal cut­ting of trees, pol­lu­tion and other en­vi­ron­men­tal mat­ters etc can be re­ported must be set up with­out de­lay.

38. Green Po­lice Sta­tions: Spe­cial po­lice sta­tions in big cities like Lud­hi­ana must come up to han­dle en­vi­ron­ment-re­lated crimes.

39. River Gag­ghar: The wa­ter of River Gag­ghar used to be quite clean a few years ago. Peo­ple used to use it for drink­ing and bathing. Now it has be­come a sewage drain. In­dus­trial and do­mes­tic waste­water is flow­ing into it, most of which is un­treated. This is pol­lut­ing ground­wa­ter in the nearby ar­eas that are suf­fer­ing from dis­eases like jaun­dice and can­cer. The gov­ern­ment has not done much on this front.
What will you do about it if you come to power?

40. Pub­lic Trans­port: A few years ago, some cities of Pun­jab had started us­ing city bus ser­vices which have now al­most stopped. There are very few good pub­lic means of trans­port even in big cities like Lud­hi­ana.
What will be your gov­ern­men­t’s trans­port pol­icy?