Pampa may find place in NRCP

By Radhakrishnan Kuttoor

PATHANAMTHITTA, JUNE 4. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forest is seriously thinking of including the River Pampa, popularly known as `Dakshin Ganga', in the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) in view of the serious pollution and degeneration it faces.

Talking to The Hindu here recently, the AICC secretary and Mavelikara MP, Mr. Ramesh Chennithala, said the Union Minister for Environment and Forest, Mr. T.R. Baalu, had taken serious note of the ongoing degradation of the river, its high rate of pollution and indiscriminate sand quarrying from the riverbed.

In a letter (dated April 24) to Mr. Ramesh, the Minister said that studies on peninsular rivers, including the Pampa, had already been carried out under the NRCP with the help of the Central and State Pollution Control Boards and the river has been ``found polluted on account of high bacterial levels''.

The Minister said a meeting of the National River Conservation Agency (NRCA), chaired by the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, on April 10, decided to take up additional rivers and towns under the NRCP in an integrated and holistic manner.

He said the Union Government would soon issue a set of new guidelines to this effect to the State Government which in turn would have to prepare a report on the pollution status of the Pampa and a detailed project on the proposed Pampa Action Plan to be submitted before the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest.

Mr. Ramesh said the Union Minister's response was on a memorandum submitted to the latter by the Pampa Parirakshana Samithi (PPS), a Kozhencherry-based eco-group for the protection of the River Pampa. The PPS had also submitted an action plan for Pampa to the Union Ministry a year ago, Mr. Ramesh added.

In his memorandum, the PPS general secretary, Mr. N. K. Sukumaran Nair, had said that the pollution of the river had been alarmingly on the rise over the past one decade. Pampa, the third longest river in the State, was facing a slow death due to acute water pollution, indiscriminate quarrying of river sand and deforestation in its catchment areas.

The 179-km-long river, flowing through the three districts of Pathanamthitta, Kollam and Alappuzha before it joins the Vembanad lake, is regarded as the lifeline of Central Travancore. The total catchment area of the Pampa was 4,569 sq. km. and over 50 lakh people resided in its basin.

Many people residing on the river bank lament that in olden days, even the bitterest summers never used to bring a drought-like situation in the Pampa basin. But, now, with the depletion of the groundwater table due to indiscriminate removal of sand from the riverbed, drying up of wells had become common during the summer and they had to deepen their wells every year.

The elders say that Pampa, being fed by over 270 mountain streams, besides the two tributaries of Manimala and Achenkoil, was a river with a perennial flow in olden days. They lament that the once perennial river had now been transformed into one that swings to extremes from summer to monsoon.

The river which is a swirling torrent of muddy waters during monsoon, turns into patches of stagnant pools during summer, the elders say.

The pollution status of the river had been officially clarified as horrifying during the annual Sabarimala pilgrim season due to the discharge of filth and human excreta into it by the streams flowing from the Sabarimala hills and also from the latrines located on the river banks.

The river water contamination is said to be so high that it is unfit for even bathing as per the CPCB standards. The river water is further being contaminated with the dumping of waste materials and sewage flown into it from towns, markets, hospitals, rubber factories and slaughter houses, alleged the PPS general secretary.

As per the data collected by the State Pollution Control Board, the bacterial pollution in the Pampa waters was far above all permissible limits and chances are high for spread of water-borne diseases in areas which receive water from Pampa and its tributaries, says Mr. Sukumaran Nair.

He said that taking into consideration all these facts, it was high time that Pampa be included in the NRCP and the Pampa Action Plan implemented to save the river from further degradation and a slow death.

As the Union Minister had already made it clear that the Ministry had conducted a serious study on the pollution status of River Pampa, the ball is now in the State Government's court to prepare a detailed Pampa action plan project and submit it for the Centre's approval, says the PPS general secretary.

The River Pampa that turns into stagnant pools in summer. A scene from Kozhencherry.

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