Punjab cabinet approves Rs 650 crore for rejuvenation of Buddha Nullah

The Punjab cabinet on Tuesday approved Rs 650 crore for rejuvenation of the highly-polluted Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana and decided to levy one per cent additional stamp duty on registration of sale or purchase of urban properties. The decisions were taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in Chandigarh.

Under this ambitious project, an additional sewerage treatment plant with 275 million litres a day capacity, including associated infrastructure, would be developed and it would go a long way in solving problems of the stream and subsequent pollution of the Sutlej river, according to a government statement.

The main source of pollution in Buddha stream was the discharge of waste from industries, dairies and some slums into a 47-km drain, of which 14 km passes through Ludhiana, the statement said. Taking serious view of pollution in the drains, streams and rivers in the state, the National Green Tribunal has already directed the state government to take proactive steps to immediately address this problem.

Last month, the government had said that under the first phase of this project, augmentation and refurbishment of the sewage treatment facility and dairy effluent treatment would be carried out. The second phase would include the reuse of treated effluent besides the landscaping and beautification along the drain. Meanwhile, the cabinet also decided to levy one per cent additional stamp duty on registration of sale or purchase of urban properties to finance water supply and environment improvement programmes in urban areas of the state, the release said.

In another decision, the cabinet approved creation of 550 posts in the government medical colleges in Patiala and Amritsar with an objective of further improving and streamlining the functioning of these institutions. The new posts would comprise 66 paramedics of technical nature, 464 critical posts of nurses, technicians and class IV employees, said a government release.

These posts would be instrumental in putting into use the medical machinery, equipment and infrastructure, lying idle due to paucity of staff, it said. The cabinet also gave its nod to the renaming of upcoming government medical college in Mohali as Dr B R Ambedkar State Institute of Medical Sciences.