“It is better if the government gives us poison, we cannot live like this,” declares Pradeep Tyagi, the pradhan (village chief) of Chapraula, when we meet at his office just off National Highway 91. His village of about 40,000 is bang in the middle of the Chapraula Industrial area, barely 50 km from the Capital.
More than 150 industries are packed between the homes of villagers in this fertile patch of the Yamuna floodplain. After more than 50 deaths and over a hundred falling ill in this region, the locals are blaming pollution — in the air and water and on land — for a spate of chronic diseases, many of which were unheard of by them even until ten years ago.
On December 15, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued closure notice to Arvi Components and India Woodlin, besides ordering seven other industries in the area to clean up their act before December 31, 2015. These strictures are but a half-victory and have come after years of efforts by the locals to draw attention to their plight and sustained media attention.
“Our village earns the maximum revenue for Uttar Pradesh, but in terms of health, education and welfare we have received nothing in return,” fumes Tyagi, his rough dialect, typical of western UP, liberally peppered with insults.
Since 2011, Tyagi has written multiple letters to the district authority, a local organisation has filed cases with the NGT, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences has been petitioned to run a cancer registry, but all in vain.
Nitu Pal, whose house sits just outside the boundary wall of Suchi Paper Mill, shows the blackened soles of his feet. “Even young kids here have feet like this; it does not wash off,” he says.
Three chimneys are spewing smoke barely 50m from the houses. “At 9 pm the smoke starts filling the air and it becomes difficult to breathe; it stays like that until morning. We cannot even dry our clothes anymore,” says Pal. “We even have to wash the fodder that we give our cattle,” chips in Dharmender Tyagi.
A frail Moolchand Pal, aged 84, walks out of his home with difficulty. “I now find it difficult to talk. If I did not have medical cover as a retired National Thermal Power Corporation employee, I would have died a long time ago,” he states. The octogenarian’s thoughts fly back to his younger days, a time when this very place was overrun with green fields.
“Even illiterate people know that pollution kills; I live right next to the plant, how will I not get sick,” he asks.
Until now, no direct link has been established between the industrial units and the cases of cancer, hepatitis, liver disorders and skin ailments reported among the people in the vicinity. Medical reports compiled from visits to local hospitals, however, tell another story. Yogesh Nagar, who hails from nearby Khudikhera village, had filed cases with the NGT after collecting details about the polluting industries and the medical records of locals with the help of several youngsters. As Nagar is currently away training at the State Police Academy, the crusade has suffered without its visible face and star campaigner.
A village gave way
In the early ’80s, when the government acquired land in the area for industry and housing, many people were left with just the land on which their houses stood. A TV picture tube manufacturing unit started by Samtel in 1987 (and now shut) was the first major industrial plant to sprout here. Several other industries followed, including many that were moved out of the Capital.
For miles along the Noida-Greater Noida road, unfinished apartment blocks loom over the dry open space. Closer to Chapraula, the wide road suddenly disappears and deep ruts appear on the narrow stretch. Locals on two-wheelers and bicycles navigate the dust clouds amidst a caravan of trucks, as piles of construction rubble and garbage loom into view on open plots.
“The two firms that were shut down are the smallest here, there are many bigger fish,” says Pradeep. All around the factories, rubbish is piled high on empty plots and migrant workers comb it for metal scraps to sell. Chapraula’s weekly Thursday market, which attracts people from surrounding villages, has for years been held on a dirty plot opposite the paper factory.
Flow of slow poison
In the narrow lanes in the village, nearly every household has a member who is either battling a chronic illness or succumbed to one. Water pumped from underground is unfit for drinking — it is yellowish-green and the total dissolved solids (TDS) count is an alarming 2,700 in some samples. “The district administration installed pipes and booster pumps for drinking water supply more than 18 months ago, but there is no supply yet,” Pradeep says. For now, those who can afford are purchasing water from reverse osmosis plants at ₹20 for 15 litres.
“I haven’t received any complaints from villagers about any industry or pollution of the groundwater here,” says Rajesh Kumar Singh, Sub Divisional Magistrate of Dadri. The administration has received proposals from private companies to supply water to the area, he says, adding, “Rice mills do not use any water”.
During the harvest season, paddy growers sell their produce to a rice mill located on a plot between Chapraula and neighbouring Sadopur. “I saw more than five pipes, of 10-15 inches diameter, dumping untreated water into the ground. During the harvest season, these pumps work night and day,” says Vikrant Singh, of Sadopur village.
Rice milling uses water at every stage, from washing and soaking rice to parboiling to remove the husk.
The liquid waste is either pumped underground or allowed to drain into the Hindon river some distance away. Years of unchecked pollutants are accumulating in the water.
Detritus of denial
There is no central registry or database that tracks the rising incidence of chronic diseases. Based on what they can afford, people visit private hospitals and deplete their savings on medical bills. “We use the nearby Community Health Centre at Badalpur only for minor illnesses, and for childbirth,” says Pradeep.
In an ironic twist, aside from the official denials, villagers themselves refuse to acknowledge the health hazards as they worry that the village might be labelled a ‘cancer belt’. “Those who have children of marriageable age are worried they might not be able to find partners for them,” says local resident Anil Mavi.
Among those who benefit from the factories are the migrant workers who toil in them, villagers who rent them houses and the shops set up by locals that cater to their needs. All of them stand to lose if the industries were to be shut down. “But we have no option now, this poison is worse,” Mavi says.
In Sadopur, sarpanch Nagendra Singh flatly denies any cases of chronic diseases or related deaths in his village. Tellingly, however, his neighbours say that the sarpanch’s father and an uncle had died of cancer in the recent past.
Another neighbour, Vikrant Singh, 31, suffers from hepatitis C. The father of two young children found out about his condition in 2013, when he was about to donate blood. He worries about the uncertain future facing his children. His family sold its land to the government and the money is fast-dwindling as he has to travel to Delhi every week for treatment.
In Badalpur village, barely 5 km away, statues and elephants in sandstone rise like ghosts amongst the houses, adjacent to the National Highway. This is the Ambedkar Park and the monuments were sanctioned by the former chief minister Mayawati, who was born in this village. The project is probably the largest and most expensive construction in the region, and is literally a white elephant — denoting money spent on empty symbols while people die right next door.
Chapraula is a symbol of all that is wrong with India, particularly Uttar Pradesh. When people give up their ancestral land for industry, do they also give up their right to clean air and drinkable water? Those who haven’t already succumbed to the poison around them are trapped in a cycle of pain and suffering. As Mahesh Tyagi, a 51-year-old farmer from Chapraula put it, “We once used to stay in heaven… today we are trapped in hell.”