Madhya Pradesh’s order to destroy crops cultivated using sewage has triggered a debate over the age old practice of using wastewater for irrigation
RESIDENTS OF Kararia, Barkhera, Pathani and Shahpur villages in Madhya Pradesh’s capital district Bhopal will soon lose the vegetables they have been growing. The loss will not be due to some disease or untimely rain. The plants will be destroyed by the government because sewage water was used to grow them.
On January 19, the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPPCB) verbally asked Bhopal’s additional collector Akshay Singh to get the crops removed in these four villages, declaring the drain water unfit for irrigation. Singh’s office says sewage was being used in 70 hectares (ha) in Bhopal, of which farming on over 45 ha has been stopped till January 2015.
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