Farmers to protest if compensation delayed

The Kissan Sangarsh Committee (KSC) will stage a dharna in front of the office of the deputy commissioner here on August 10 if compensation is not released to the farmers of Mandiyala village who allegedly lost their entire paddy due to effluents discharged from the Narindra Paper Mill.

Satnam Singh Pannu, state committee member, KSC, said the effluents were directly drained into a seasonal drain which overflowed into their farms, resulting in the loss of their crop on July 19.

He said they had immediately contacted the local office of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB).

Kuldeep Singh, SDO, PPCB, who inspected the affected farms, said crops on about five acres land was destroyed due to the effluents. He said he had forwarded the report to the head office of the PPCB at Patiala and to the ADC (general) here.

Leaders of the KSC said a number of villages around the mill had been putting up with the mill's untreated water that was endangering the health of thousands of residents.

He said earlier, their agitation against the mill for not having a treatment plant led the PPCB to issue a closure notice to it on March 28. However, the owners of the mill managed to extract some time from the PPCB's senior officials for installing a treatment plant.

A spokesperson of the paper mill said construction of treatment plant was being done on a war footing and it would start operating from the next month.