SARSA RIVER POLLUTION

• The Sarsa was where the Guru's family got separated in the winter of 1704, never to be together again.
• The rivulet is thus important in Sikh Consciousness. But one of India's largest manufacturing hubs located near it has made the water completely unfit for human consumption.
• Pharmaceutical waste being discharged either directly or indirectly into the Sarsa from the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial complex has affected the River's biota and made the lives of people living along its banks difficult.
• The pharma waste could also be causing the area to become prone to antimicrobial resistance which is a ticking time bomb.

3. Sarsa River

• The Sarsa originates in the Shivalik hills in Himachal Pradesh.
• It flows through Solan district borders Punjab, enters Rupnagar district in Punjab and eventually flows into the Sutlej.
• On December 21, 1704, a pitched battle had taken place on the banks of the Sarsa between the Khalsa and Mughal armies.

Image source: Wikipedia

4. Pollution in the River Sarsa

• The BBN complex is spread over 380 square kilometres in the Solan district near the Sarsa.
• BBN hosted around 500 small, medium and large pharma units and accounted for 35 per cent of Asia's total medicine production.
• The rapid industrialisation and a lax attitude towards safe disposal and management of pharma waste have raised concerns about the effects of pollution on the environment and health.
• The water of the Sarsa river, which flows downstream through Baddi is black and emanates a foul odour.
• The collected water samples from the Sarsa river by covering a stretch of 20 km from four sampling spots, before and after the amalgamation of Common Effluent Treatment Plant treated pharmaceutical effluents into river water samples.

• The concentration of each heavy metal was within the permissible limits before amalgamation and dwindled gradually after amalgamating pharmaceutical effluents into the river water samples.

5. Guidelines to prevent pollution

• The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, of 1974 lays down guidelines about the penalties to be imposed on those who are polluting water resources.
• Those who pollute water are liable for a prison sentence of up to six years under the Act.
• There is also the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1981 which has to be followed.

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