River Luni: Polluted by the 1800-odd industrial units

"Still no sign of the rains," says Harishchandra Bhatti. Landowner cum farmer at Bithu-Chatelva village in Rajasthan's Pali district, July 2002 couldn't be worse for Bhatti and his neighbours. With no respite from the heavens, Bhatti casts a weary eye at the only source of surface water in the vicinity: the river Luni.

"Water?" he barks. "This is pure, unadulterated and untreated sewage and industrial effluent from towns upstream," he says, looking away in disgust. Experience has taught this hardy Rajput (the much feared warrior clan of north India) not to use this noxious cocktail of chlorides, sulphates, sodium, alkalis, residual dyes, starch, cellulose, silicate oils and other impurities.

"117 square kilometres of Pali district has been degraded by salinisation," says Prof. B.L. Deekshatulu, former director of the National Remote Sensing Agency. "Industrial effluents have directly affected 10,022 hectares of irrigated land in 40 villages," he adds.

The culprit? The 1800-odd industrial units (mostly dyeing and printing facilities) in the Jodhpur-Pali-Balotra belt of Rajasthan, which lie in the very heart of the Luni basin.

Desert river
Rajasthan is a semi-arid desert state. The Aravalli range of hills (whose northern tip touches Delhi) virtually cuts it into two halves. While the eastern board of the Aravallis is drained by several integrated drainage systems, the western board opens out into the Great Indian Desert - the Thar, which has only one major river basin: the Luni.

The ephemeral river traverses 482 km from its source before reaching the Rann of Kutchch, the vast salt plains in Gujarat. But the river very rarely makes the distance, and exhausts itself in the merciless heat of the Thar. Still, it is given pride of place in this harsh countryside.

"During and immediately after the monsoons, the Luni is responsible for groundwater recharge in this part of Rajasthan," avers Eklavya Prasad, of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and the Environment (CSE). Prasad specialises in networking different groups involved in rainwater harvesting across India. In this desert landscape, water harvesting assumes all the more significance.

With a massive catchment area of 34,253 square km, the parched Luni basin needs to harvest every drop of the 320 mm rain that the basin receives. And also to ensure that what does, is best used. But the reality is very different.

Tribute to pollution?
Several large cities in the basin are on its tributaries - Bandi and Jojri. Inevitably, so are urbanisation and industry, and the consequent pollution. The population of Jodhpur, second city of Rajasthan (Jaipur, the capital, is the unquestioned No. 1) and effluents from the 632 industries in that city, ensure that what flows in the Jojri, is not just unusable, but also ruins groundwater in the vicinity.

The Bandi, on the other hand is done in by Pali, home to some 767 dyeing and printing industries. On the mainstream Luni, lie the towns of Balotra and Jasol, where 399 dyeing and printing units spew their effluents into the river. While there are efforts underway to commission common effluent treatment plants for the effluents generated in the region, it may be a case of too little too late.

Caked and Choked
"As the effluents carry a high salt-load, this cakes the surface, choking the plants if used for irrigation," says Dr I.C. Gupta, a senior scientist at the Central Arid Zone Research Institute (CAZRI) in Jodhpur. CAZRI has documented a drop in crop yield of 45-50 per cent, owing to the use of effluents for irrigation.

Prior to industrial growth in the basin, hardy, drought-resistant crop like bajra, jowar, til moong, moth and guar (various indigenous types of grain and lentils) grew in the basin. A variety of factors, pollution being the largest culprit, have brought about a sea change in cropping patterns. There have also been instances when agriculture has been abandoned altogether.

Like in the Noyyal basin (as discussed in our July issue) some farmers have stopped farming altogether to get into the unsustainable business of selling water. And those that chose to irrigate their fields with the effluents do so knowing fully well that this could spell doom for their farms.

What they don't realise that even if they do harvest crops, this could have serious repercussions for the consumer.

Eating disease?
A 1996 study by Pragya Gupta, a student of the Jai Narayan Vyas University, Jodhpur, revealed that crop grown from lands irrigated by effluents contained high levels of heavy metals. Rats fed on food grain from these fields developed necrosis - death of cells - in the kidney and liver.

Necrosis takes place when the immune system fails to regenerate new cells. This can lead to a wide range of illnesses - cancer being only one of them. No fresh studies have emerged from the region in the recent past. Suffice to state that those consuming grains grown from lands irrigated by Luni's waters, are exposed to grave danger over a period of time.

So, the next time you pick those colourful sarees and garments off the pavement, spare a thought for the likes of Bhatti. A whole array of twisted elements from the owners of the dyeing and printing plants, pliable pollution control officials and others, carry on, even as vast swathes of the country's hinterlands are in ruin. And you and I are equal partners to this crime, by our ignorance about harsh realities.

Rajat Banerji is Managing Editor of cleanganga.com