The water crisis in Punjab has sounded the alarm for the present as well as the future generations. Many experts even believe that groundwater will disappear in the coming 2-3 decades. Whenever the issue of Punjab’s waters comes up, all the political parties stand together and start blaming each other. Be it SYL or other rivers and canals, whenever political parties get an opportunity, they do not leave any opportunity behind. These political parties, which claim Punjab’s rights on BBMB, always do politics, nothing more. These political parties are not seeing the daily poison dissolving in the waters of Punjab. Whenever any issue comes before them for four days, it emerges in such a way that it will have a definite solution in the next few days, but nothing happens.
Whether we talk about the rivers or canals of Punjab, the condition is bad everywhere. Common people are not shying away from dumping materials into the canals, while on the other hand, big corporate companies and other factories are not shying away from polluting the waters of Punjab. At present, the waters of Punjab have become so polluted that it will take about two to three decades to clean them, but looking at the current situation, it seems that the situation in Punjab is going to become even worse in the near future.
A total of 819 water sources pollute the waters
Well, coming back to the issue, the issue is about the waters of Punjab which are becoming dirty. A report that came out recently about the waters of Punjab has proved that the state government and the central government are not even willing to save the waters of Punjab. The government is not taking any strong steps to stop the pollution that is being created in the rivers and canals of Punjab by the corporate houses, factories, companies and factories, even though from time to time, campaigns are run by the Punjab Pollution Control Board to eliminate pollution and the support of the government is taken, but the situation is such that this board has also become that official of the government, which takes less action but shows more.
A total of 819 sources polluting the rivers and water resources of Punjab are yet to be closed within Punjab. Most of these resources are under the Department of Rural Development and Panchayats. Till now about 290 resources have been closed or removed, but 510 resources are still to be closed under the Panchayat Department. This was disclosed by the Punjab Pollution Control Board in its report filed with the National Green Tribunal on 19 December 2025. This report was presented in the court as per the orders of the National Green Tribunal dated 19 September 2025. This report is related to pollution of water resources of Punjab.
It is also worth mentioning here that the National Green Tribunal had taken its own notice of this matter on the basis of an article published in a newspaper on 16 September 2024. Even though these polluting water sources were not installed during the tenure of this government, the previous governments must have got them installed with permission, but the question is that when all the reports have reached the government, the data of every polluting factory has reached, then whose face is the government looking at? Why is it that these polluting factories and factories are not locked?
National Green Tribunal orders to close polluting sources
However, on this matter, the National Green Tribunal has ordered the Punjab Pollution Control Board to provide a clear deadline to close all polluting sources. After this, the Member Secretary of the Board ordered the environmental engineers of all the regional offices to submit action plans and deadlines to stop the sources releasing dirty water into the rivers. The news is that recognizing the Water Resources Department as the custodian of water resources, a letter was written to the Principal Secretary on 11 December 2025, in which an appeal was made that an order should be issued to immediately close industrial units releasing waste water into rivers and water sources, village sewerage, urban municipality drains, dairy farms and other sources.
Punjab Rural Development and Panchayat Department and Local Government Department were also asked to close the polluting sources under their jurisdiction and proper orders have also been given in this regard. But till now the proceedings are going on only on paper. According to a report, the Rural Development and Panchayat Department says that 31 polluting sources have been closed by them, but the Local Government Department has closed only 30 sources. The Board has closed or removed 18 industrial, three dairies and four individual sources of pollution. The number of closed polluting sources has increased from 606 to 692, while the remaining polluting sources within the state have decreased from 905 to 819, which are still to be closed.
If we look closely, this is a recent data. Even before this, data has been collected by many organizations at their own level, in which many types of allegations are made on the present and then governments that they did not do anything, but instead instigated politics on this issue and made people fight. Be it the issue of Budha Nala or Sutlej River, Ravi, Beas, everywhere the government just creates drama, nothing else. It is very important to save the waters of Punjab at this time, because the way in which the water level of Punjab has been continuously decreasing within the state, it becomes clear that the coming times are going to be terrible for Punjab.
It is very important to save the waters of Punjab
Although the water level in the state has increased due to the floods this year, the number of problems has also crossed a lot, which needs to be paid attention to and not done by doing politics on it. Although our Guru Sahiban had given the message of saving water, air and earth, but today we are going against all this and are wasting water, destroying the earth, and apart from this, we are also polluting the sky. Due to the smoke coming out from factories, poisonous gases are being produced and various types of diseases are also occurring there.
On the other hand, the problem has become that what will the future be like whether the newborn will also be safe. Well, let’s see what happens in the future, but it is very important to save the waters of Punjab within Punjab, because the way the number of water resources which are causing pollution is continuously increasing, it seems that Punjab is not safe at all at this time. The state government should pay attention to this and take strict decisions and make such rules so that by completely closing down the polluting factories, factories, dairies, factories and other industrial units, Punjab can be made a happy and better state again.
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