Brewery to sully Yamuna but govt grins and beers it Construction (Mall Today 19 January 2011)

SO YOU feel the Yamuna can't get any dirtier? Think again. A brewery is set to come up along the banks of the river on the Delhi- Haryana border. Experts fear effluents from the factory would further contaminate the Yamuna. What will worry Delhiites more is that the potable potable /pot·a·ble/ (po´tah-b'l) fit to drink.
po·ta·bleadj.Fit to drink; drinkable.
potablefit to drink. water that is supplied to households across the Capital passes through the area where the liquor factory is being set up. This has added to fears that our drinking water drinking watersupply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. may also be contaminated over the long run. Manoj Mishra, an activist associated with the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan, says: " The brewery will poison the water which is used for drinking purposes by residents of the Capital. Toxic waste toxic waste is waste material, often in chemical form, that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It usually is the product of industry or commerce, but comes also from residential use, agriculture, the military, medical facilities, radioactive sources, and from the factory will harm the health of Delhiites." The brewery is privately owned and is being set up along the Yamuna bank at the Dahisara village situated on the Delhi- Haryana border. The village comes under the jurisdiction of the Sonepat district.
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The Haryana government, on its part, had no qualms in allowing the setting up of a brewery on the Yamuna's floodplain floodplain, level land along the course of a river formed by the deposition of sediment during periodic floods. Floodplains contain such features as levees, backswamps, delta plains, and oxbow lakes. . And despite the assumed threat to the Capital, the Delhi government has also not bothered to oppose the factory so far and construction of the brewery is in full swing. Mishra raises questions over the role of various authorities in " this travesty". " It is gross negligence An indifference to, and a blatant violation of, a legal duty with respect to the rights of others.Gross negligence is a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or on the part of the Delhi government, the Haryana government and the Centre. Other departments such as the pollution control board and the environment department have also been caught napping. What is shocking is that nobody has opposed this so far," he says. Mishra says he has shot off a complaint letter to Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh about the construction of the brewery. But to expect the Delhi government to take steps to take action; to move in a matter.See also: Step against the setting up of the brewery may be a tall ask. If officials are to be believed, the state government is not even aware of the matter. State environment secretary Dharmendra said he did not know about any factory being set up on the riverbed but said he would look into the matter. Local villagers say construction of the factory has been going on for the past few months. They say the process started about six months ago, when a local builder approached them and offered to purchase the land in Dahisara. " The builder told us that the land would be used for agricultural purposes. We sold it as the land is along the Yamuna and gets submerged during the monsoon," Surender Singh, a villager, says. But locals were surprised when they found out a few months later that a factory was going to be set up on the land instead. " We opposed the setting up of the liquor factory but nobody listened to us," Kartar Singh, another villager, says. Villagers allege a nexus between the factory owner -- who has not been identified -- and the local administration in the matter. " The land we had sold was not registered, though we had been trying to do so for many years. But as soon as we sold it to the local builder, registry was done in no time and the factory owner bought it. Every official involved in the deal has made money out of this," Singh alleges. Villagers also claim that they were cheated by the builder as the land was sold to the factory owner at a much higher rate. " We sold it at the rate of ` 4 lakh lakhNoun(in India) 100 000, esp. referring to this sum of rupees [Hindi lākh]Noun 1. lakh - the cardinal number that is the fifth power of ten100000, hundred thousand to ` 5 lakh per acre but the land was finally sold to the owner at ` 15 lakh to ` 16 lakh an acre," Singh adds. Sonepat deputy commissioner Ajit Balaji Joshi claims there is " nothing illegal or unauthorised about the factory" so far as his jurisdiction is concerned, saying the state industry department has approved the project. He also claims the factory would not contaminate the water. " I don't think it would be a problem. In certain industries, there is a mechanism of zero discharge," he says. But he didn't comment when asked if this brewery would employ the zerodischarge mechanism.