Impact of the pollution in downstream villages

The water of the polluted Sabarmati is used by a large number of villages located downstream of Ahmedabad for their daily needs and livelihood. This pollution has both an acute and a chronic health impact. The impact of pollution has been discussed in detail in Chapter 1. Specific studies highlighting impact of pollution in the Sabarmati on human health, health of livestock and their milk production, agricultural produce, contamination of land and ground water and on social life have also been included in the discussion in Chapter 1.

The polluted water in the Sabarmati is used for growing food by the villagers downstream. There are 9450 hectares of land in the downstream villages that are irrigated by the polluted river water. It forms 45 per cent of the irrigated land in the downstream villages. Among others, coriander, spinach and radish are grown in these areas where the heavy metals can find their way into the food grown using this water (John, 2018). This leads to chemical contamination of fruits, grains and vegetables. The vegetables grown using the polluted irrigation water are bought by vendors in the Jamalpur main market in Ahmedabad and further sent to the buyers in the city, thereby closing the loop.

The city releases its waste into the river and this waste-laden water is used to grow food items, which the residents of the city consume. Is this the proverbial, ‘Be not deceived; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,’ or it is simply the ‘user pays principle’ acting out in a collective way?

Conclusions

The Sabarmati, when it enters Ahmedabad, has a good quality of water and meets the accepted norms. It is not a perennial river and is fed by the pristine Narmada water that has been diverted to the city of Ahmedabad to develop the river front on the Sabarmati. Downstream of the city, after the discharge of industrial effluents and domestic sewage, the river water quality degrades completely and attracts Priority I for restoration. The ‘dead’ river downstream of Ahmedabad is not fit for any purpose and even fish cannot survive in it due to the absence of oxygen. There is no question of having any riverine ecosystem due to the extremely poor water quality. The river also exhibits the presence of heavy metals in concentrations above desired levels. Even the Khari river, the pollution of which has led to legal intervention to restore its water quality and to the creation of infrastructure to treat pollution, remains polluted. The legal system has resulted in the pollution of the Sabarmati and at the same time, the illegal system has continued to keep the Khari polluted. The irony of the situation is that we now have both the Sabarmati and the Khari at high levels of pollution (Figure 7.8). The communities downstream of the city are dependent on this water for their life and livelihood. Under the circumstances, it is completely unacceptable to pollute whatever scarce water resources are available. This is not a situation where there is an option of choosing either economic growth or environment protection—both are needed and one cannot be at the cost of the other.

FIGURE 7.8 Pollution in the Sabarmati and the Kharicut. Source: Author.

Notes

• 1 A major part of this chapter was recently published as an article—Bansal, N., Parthasarathy, R. (2020). Ahmedabad’s impact on the Sabarmati river. Economic & Political Weekly, 55 (5).
• 2 pH is a number that expresses the acidity or alkalinity of a solution on a logarithmic scale on which seven is neutral; lower values are more acidic while higher values are more alkaline.
• 3 DO is a measure of the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water body.
• 4 BOD is the amount of dissolved oxygen needed by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material present in a given water sample at a certain temperature over a specific time period.
• 5 TOOL is a measure of the total coliform bacteria present in the water body.
• 6 MPN stands for ‘most probable number’ and indicates that the water has been contaminated with faecal material.

References

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