Kandra nullah at Gamharia in Seraikela-Kharsawan district on Wednesday. (Srinivas)

Jamshedpur, May 11: In the afternoon sun, the Kandra nullah glows bright red. An important water body that feeds over a dozen villages along its 12km route through Seraikela-Kharsawan district before it joins the Subernarekha, the rivulet appears to be bleeding from the havoc wreaked by pollution.

Appalled villagers, who depend upon the rivulet for drinking water and irrigation, have turned to the Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB) for redress, accusing a steel plant owned by Adhunik Alloys and Power Limited in nearby Bankipur of discharging untreated effluent into the water.

On its part, the JSPCB has directed the company to set up a pond to treat effluents being released from its plant in Gamharia block.

According to the villagers, the untreated effluent was not only ruining the fertility of the land, but was also killing the fish in the rivulet as well as in the Subernarekha.

Speaking to The Telegraph, regional officer of the pollution control board, R.N. Chowdhury, said he had directed Adhunik Alloys and Power Limited to set up a pond for treatment of effluent before releasing the water into the open or resort to recycling the waste for industrial use.

“Norms stipulate that every steel plant needs to set up a full-fledged effluent treatment plant on its premises. I have written to the Adhunik Steel to do the needful, failing which necessary action will be initiated against the company,” he said. He added that the water quality would be tested soon to determine if the company was indeed abiding by the order or not.

A senior official of Adhunik Alloys and Power Limited, however, claimed that they already had in place not one, but three ponds to treat industrial effluents.

‘We take water from Chandil dam through a pipeline, and utilise all of it to run the plant. We hardly release any industrial effluent in the open,” said Anand Kumar, assistant general manager (corporate communications).

Kumar said the iron-ore stockyard on the plant premises was responsible for the red water the villagers insisted was untreated waste. “We have shut down the furnace as of April 25 and thus the question of industrial effluent does not arise,” he added.

Kumar said the recent heavy showers had washed away the iron-ore kept in the stockyard, and the ferrous dust particles had found their way into the rivulet, turning the water red.

However, the villagers of Bankipur, Pindrabera and Raimara refused to buy the argument. They said the they had been facing the problem for close to two years now and repeated complaints to pollution control board had yielded little, adding that the nullah’s water had been their source of sustenance for ages.

According to mukhiya of Rapcha panchayat Jawahar Mahali, air and water pollution had been steadily rising over the years. “We have lodged complaints with the JSPCB’s regional office against the companies operating in the area, but to no avail,” he said, adding that this time too, they expect little.