A GOVERNMENT official, addressing a recent international conference, noted that the Indus River was being polluted by constant dumping of toxic effluents. The statement was partially true because the situation is not limited to the mighty Indus alone. It is common knowledge that the Ravi has become a wastewater drain that carries toxic effluents rather than water due to continuous industrial and human waste being dumped from Lahore and other cities.

There is another disaster in the making. Sutlej, the longest of the five Punjab rivers, takes its birth in the mountains of Tibet, China, and passing through the Indian Punjab, it enters Pakistan near Kasur: the city of sufi saint Bulleh Shah. Critically, Kasur is also home to a vast flourishing leather industry.

Although the leather industry of Kasur contributes a considerable share to the national economy, it has been notorious for its damage to the environment and ecology. About 300 tannery units set up in the centre of the city use chrome tanning as a leather processing method. Chrome tanning uses severely toxic chemicals, including heavy metals, like chromium, which are considered the most carcinogenic elements on Earth.

Many tanneries are throwing their chrome-containing effluents into Rohi Nullah, which passes across the city and takes all the sewage and wastewater of the whole population to Pandoki drain.

Some tanneries do send their effluents to the Kasur Tanneries Waste Management Agency (KTWMA) treatment plant, but a large hole in the main carriageway, just before the treatment plant, allows a major volume of untreated effluents into another small drain that goes along Depalpur Road into Pandoki drain, which takes all the toxic effluents and urban sewage directly to the Sutlej River.

Such a huge volume of severely toxic effluents-cum-wastewater is damaging the entire spectrum of flora and fauna. It also severely affects river water quality, the signs of which are evident through satellite imagery as a sudden change in watercolour and disappearance of plants post-Pandoki.

There is a dire need to take effective policy measures to stop the quality of Sutlej water from deteriorating. Otherwise, around one million hectares of the golden soil of Kasur, Okara and Bahawalpur that os irrigated by this water will suffer, and the great Sutlej will end up being another Ravi, which has already become another Indus. The rot has to stop somewhere.

Zaki Ul Rahman
Islamabad

Published in Dawn, March 2nd, 2025