TOXIC TRAIL

How a polluted seasonal rivulet in Ludhiana causes cancer, cognitive impairment and organ damage cases in districts 200 km away

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FIVE-YEAR-OLD Gurnoor Singh suffers from an uncommon problem. Bits of his milk teeth keep breaking off randomly. Gurnoor's father Sukhvinder Singh, a farmer from Ghaunspur village in Ludhiana district, Punjab, says many children in the village have the same condition.

Over 200 km southwest of Ludhiana, in Burj Mohar village of Fazilka district, lives nine-year-old Hargun Kaur. She, too, suffers from an obscure tooth ailment. Her permanent teeth have begun to emerge without the milk teeth having fallen off. Her grandfather Kuldeep Singh, who takes care of Hargun since her father has cognitive and speech impairment, says that dentists attribute such problems to long-term consumption of water laden with contaminants, such as heavy metals and fluorides.

What possibly connects Gurnoor and Hargun, apart from their tooth ailments, is the contamination source of the waters they consume-Buddha Nullah, a 40-km seasonal tributary of the Sutlej river (see 'Contamination route', p17). It originates in Ludhiana, passes through the breadth of the district as well as along Ghaunspur, and merges with the Sutlej in the same district. In its course, it becomes a receptacle of Ludhiana's substantial industrial discharge (the district is Punjab's foremost industrial hub, with some 2,000 electroplating and dyeing units) through drains and sewer networks that empty into it.