2 tankers with waste from HP distillery seized in Rupnagar

: Two days after residents of Nangran village, 50 km from the district headquarters, woke up to see hundreds of dead fish floating on the surface of Swan river on the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border on Friday, police have seized two tankers carrying spent wash (waste) from a brewery in the Mehatpur area of Himachal Pradesh. Police claim the spent wash was meant for dumping in fields on the bank of Sirsa river near Rupnagar.

Distillery spent wash is the unwanted residual liquid waste generated during alcohol production and pollution it causes remains a critical environmental issue. When thrown in water bodies, it reduces the dissolved oxygen content of the water drastically.

“Both the tankers were carrying spent wash, which when mixed with water, reduces dissolved oxygen drastically,” said Kuldeep Singh, environmental engineer with the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB).

“There is a strong possibility that the effluent was meant to be dumped in the Swan and this is what caused the death of fish near Nangran village on Friday,” Kuldeep added.

“We had received a tip-off that spent wash from a brewery was being dumped in fields on the bank of Sirsa river near Gurdwara Parivar Vichhora Sahib. We seized the trucks and informed the PPCB,” said Anandpur Sahib DSP Raminder Singh Kahlon.

Rupnagar SSP Swapan Sharma said tanker drivers Gurnam Singh of Bulara village and Gurdit Singh, of Lohara village, both in Ludhiana district have been arrested. The tanker owner, Sachin Jain, has been booked.

Police have registered a case under sections 270, 277, 278 , 284 of the IPC.

Jain refuted allegations that spent wash was being dumped illegally. “A private land owner had asked us to offload it in his land,” he claimed.