http://www.outlookindia.com/fullprint.asp?choice=1&fodname=20071224&fname=Cancer+%28F%29&sid=1
Poison Earth
Courtesy an overzealous Green Revolution, Punjab has poison in its
water and a cancer epidemic on its hands
CHANDER SUTA DOGRA
The Curse Is Spreading
* The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research
in Chandigarh has conducted a study over two years in five villages
along Punjab's major rivulets in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar
districts
* 88 per cent ground water samples showed alarming levels of
mercury, over 50 per cent samples of ground and tap water
contaminated by arsenic
* Lady's fingers, carrots, gourds, cauliflower and chillies found
to have toxic levels of lead, cadmium, mercury; cadmium, arsenic,
mercury are known carcinogens; mercury also affects the nervous system
* Pesticides beyond permissible limit found in vegetables,
fodder, human and bovine milk, as well as blood samples
* 65 per cent blood samples showed DNA mutation; there has been a
sharp increase in cancer, neurological disorders, liver and kidney
diseases, congenital defects, miscarriages
* This health crisis has been caused by the overuse of pesticides
and the dumping of industrial effluents, which have made soil and
water toxic
Though it constitutes 2.5% of the country's area, Punjab accounts for
18% of pesticide used in the country
***
Baljeet Kaur of Giana village in Punjab's cotton belt has been
battling cancer for the last 10 years. First it was her husband who
died of colon cancer, now she has cancer of the oesophagus. Her
neighbour Mukhtiar Kaur is being treated for breast cancer. The
family had a hand pump at home which provided them water for their
daily needs but abandoned it after health officials told them its
water was toxic. Now they get raw canal water for drinking and
cooking. "Who knows if it is the water which has brought this disease
on me?" she says. "All I know is that scores of people in our village
are dying of cancer." In neighbouring Jajjal, the word cancer only
evokes deja vu. Karnail Singh and his wife Balbir Kaur both have
cancer, live in adjoining houses, each with one of their sons. "This
village is cursed," says their brother Jarnail Singh.
On death row: Jajjal's Karnail Singh and his wife both have cancer,
live in adjoining houses, each with a son
In Ghaunzpur in Ludhiana district, a good 200 km away, Manjit and
Gurjit Singh lost both their parents to hepatitis; an uncle is
afflicted with the same. The water from the hand pump in the
courtyard turns foamy when heated, so they have dug a submersible
pump which pumps out water from 300 ft below. Other households in the
village cannot afford to do so.
For Punjab's prosperous farming households and lush green fields, the
famed Green Revolution is beginning to turn bilious from within. Its
gushing tubewells, the cattle heavy with milk, the trolleys laden
with vegetables destined for urban markets-all are likely to be
contaminated with toxins. The state is sitting on an environmental
crisis and few of have any idea of how to tackle it.
Some two years ago, when reports of increased cancer deaths first
started coming in from the state's cotton belt, the Chandigarh-based
Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER)
decided to investigate. A preliminary study it conducted found a much
higher prevalence of cancer in the Talwandi Sabo block and the
presence of heavy metals and pesticides in drinking water in the
area. It recommended a comprehensive study of the status of
environmental health in Punjab's other cotton-growing areas, the
setting up of a cancer registry in the state, and regular monitoring
of the drinking water. Of course, intense pressure from the
pesticides lobby ensured none of this came to pass and the report was
ignored.
This month, the PGIMER's department of community medicine has
submitted a comprehensive epidemiological study (see box) in areas
along the state's five major rivulets to the State Pollution Control
Board. The results are so shocking that the board has put it under
wraps and is having second thoughts about releasing it. Says Dr J.S.
Thakur, an assistant professor at PGIMER, who conducted the study,
"Our two studies show that all of Punjab is toxic and people do not
have safe water to drink. Both agricultural and industrial
malpractices are to be blamed for this."
The worst affected is the southeastern Malwa region, better known
these days as the 'cancer belt'. To counter increasingly resistant
pests, farmers here spray their fields with pesticide doses far above
those recommended-often cocktailing two or more chemicals. As the
former sarpanch of Jajjal, Najar Singh, told Outlook, "Although the
recommended dose is about five sprays per season, we sometimes spray
our fields 25 to 30 times. Almost every third day!" Punjab, which
makes up for just 2.5 per cent of the country's area, accounts for 18
per cent of the pesticides used in the country.
The state's problem is their unregulated use, say experts, with most
farmers unaware of how to use or dispose of the empty pesticide cans.
So, in the last four decades pesticides have seeped into the
underground water aquifers, as also in the state's water bodies. And
in the last 10 years, more and more well-off households along the
drains have begun setting up submersible pumps to get water from deep
aquifers, as water from taps and handpumps is unfit for human use.
Punjab's finance minister Manpreet Badal is a legislator from Muktsar
district's Gidderbaha, located in the cancer belt. "In the 50
villages in my constituency," he says, "there'd be a thousand-odd
cancer cases. I've lost count of the funerals of cancer victims I've
attended in my area since the beginning of this year. It is an
epidemic here." A train leaving from Bhatinda to Bikaner has been
dubbed 'cancer express' as most patients from here go to Bikaner's
cancer hospital for treatment. Even a child in these parts knows what
chemotherapy is about. "Our neighbour used to take hot injections
before she died last year," says little Kiranjot at Chandbaja village
in Faridkot district. "Many others in our village have taken them."
Giana's Baljeet Kaur has cancer of the oesophagus
Dr G.P.I. Singh, who heads the department of community medicine in
Ludhiana's Dayanand Medical College, has recently begun studying,
along with other private doctors across the state and NGO Kheti
Virasat Mission (KVM), the impact of heavy metals and pesticides on
reproductive health in Punjab. "One of the things worrying us," he
says, "is that the skewed sex ratio in both Punjab and Haryana could
also be due to chemical exposure, as the female foetus is more
vulnerable. We notice an increase in spontaneous abortions,
infertility, distorted menarche and foetuses with neural tube
defects." There is also a high incidence of grey hair among children
and young adults in this area. Ask for one, and most villages throw
up several.
Not just pesticides, but unchecked effluent flow from industries into
the rivers and drains too has contaminated underground water in
Punjab. At Ghaunzpur, for instance, five paper mills dump their
entire effluent unchecked into the Buddha Nullah. However, the state
pollution board which is supposed to check industries such as these
from polluting water bodies couldn't be bothered. This is evident
from the response of the board's chairman, Yogesh Goel, when queried
about the PGIMER report."I'm busy right now. You can ask the
secretary of the board about it," he told Outlook. Quite predictably,
the secretary too made himself unavailable. KVM director Umendra
Dutt, who has been most active in raising the issue of cancer deaths
in Punjab, feels that agricultural scientists in cahoots with
pesticide manufacturing mncs have led to this health crisis. "All
these years agricultural scientists have been advocating heavy doses
of pesticides without informing farmers of the damage improper usage
causes," he says.
Meanwhile, though officials are aware of the problem, the state is
yet to evolve a concrete water policy to address the problem. Says
J.R. Kundal, Punjab's secretary for water supply and sanitation,
"Ideally, there should be an umbrella task force to deal with the
problem in its entirety," he says. "Presently, different agencies are
conducting overlapping studies which will take us nowhere. I am
heading a task force to study arsenic in water, while the state
planning board is looking into drinking water and allied issues.
Although 90 per cent of the underground water is used for irrigation
and just 10 per cent for drinking water, we realise that this 10 per
cent is crucial for the health of our people."
With the government unsure of what to do, Manpreet Badal has
installed four distribution points supplying Reverse Osmosis water in
his constituency. "Till a statewide water supply scheme comes up,"
says he, "I've taken this interim measure." His people are lucky.
Others in the state are condemned to drinking polluted water and
suffer from deadly diseases, reaping the poisoned fruit of a Green
Revolution gone unchecked.
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