The age-old reverence of the people of Jammu for the historic river Tawi is fast vanishing. The river also called the Daughter of the Sun (Suryaputri) in the Vedas and held in greatest esteem by the sages and savants of Jammu region, has become the cesspool of filth, dirt and garbage, thanks to the people, who have distanced themselves from their ancient civilization and tradition. For ancient Hindus, it was a sin to pollute the waters of a river, spring or a pond. They worshipped the Suryaputri, they prayed at its banks and they considered the water of the Tawi with celestial merits. This is the reason why for millennia after millennia Tawi waters maintained pristine purity.
With the passage of time, Jammu city expanded and its population increased manifold. Population explosion invariably affects the nature and environment. It brings great pressure on water, land, air and environment. Total apathy of the Governments of the time to visualize the impact of the population explosion on resources and environment has caused havoc to the ecology of Jammu with worst impact on Tawi. Its sacredness is gone, its purity is a talk of the past and now it looks an obnoxious pit, where entire garbage, litter and refuse of the city is dumped by the citizens. The Prime Minister gave a call for Swachh Bharat or Clean India. What the NGOs, who take the glory of implementing the programme of the Prime Minster, do is to collect the litter, refuse from schools and other places, and dump it in the riverbed. They do so because there is no arrangement from the Municipality in Jammu to dispose the garbage at one place.
42-member Parliamentary Panel visited Jammu early this year to assess the pollution of the water bodies especially Tawi River. They were appalled to see the dismal condition of Tawi, the river whose water is also supplied for drinking in the city after it is treated. In a meeting with the functionaries of the Jammu Municipal Corporation and attended by Government functionaries, the chair of the Parliamentary panel expressed his shock at the negligence of concerned authorities about the pollution of water body like Tawi. The panel advised the Commissioner of Jammu Municipal Corporation to mobilize resources to clean the Tawi especially from the Gujjar Nagar Bridge to the fourth bridge without waste of time. The panel strongly recommended that people should be educated on the dangers of polluting the waters of the river and those found guilty of polluting it should be punished to let people know that the Government is very serious about the matter.
Four months have gone by when the report of the Parliamentary panel was submitted. Two months have gone by when the Parliament studied the report and endorsed the recommendations made therein. However, not a blade of grass has moved. The State Government is trivializing the recommendations of the Parliamentary panel. What then is the fun of Parliament constituting the committees, incurring huge expenses on their visit and study when their recommendations are relegated to the cold store? How strange that the recommendations of the parliamentary panel carry no weight for the Government of Jammu and Kashmir. Even the lip service, in which our State has not rivals, is conspicuously absent in this case. We have been hearing about so many ambitious plans orchestrated by Government agencies like the Tawi Lake or beautifying the Tawi banks, picnic resorts for the citizenry along the Tawi bank, posh and attractive restaurants coming up for excursionists etc. This tall talk is all to mislead the people and create a false sense of achievement. Some Government functionary happens to have visited a beautiful European city like Geneva or Paris or Hamburg and carried the idea of beautifying the river course of Tawi while it passes through Jammu. These are all grand phantasmal and figment of imagination. What we want is that the Municipal Corporation initiates a massive campaign for educating people of not throwing garbage into the bed of the river. Why does not the Municipality activate the rules and regulations under which defaulters are to face punishment?
One major source of pollution of the waters of Tawi is about 12 nullahs that run down from the heights bringing dirt and filth thrown into them by the people and then disgorging into the Tawi. Geological engineers and experts have reported this in their study. The Government made half-hearted approach to the issue and finally backed out from the plan of connecting the nullahs into one and channeling it away from Tawi. Therefore, one major project that the Government needs to take up is that of controlling these nullahs and forbidding making their waters dirty or encroaching on them. Unless these measures are taken, Tawi will continue to degenerate and debase.
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