Where there is a will there is a way. Punjab can reduce the area under paddy and arrest the fall in its groundwater; it only needs the political will to do so.

Chandigarh: As a part of river conservation project, the union ministry of environment and forests on Thursday cleared a proposal for laying sewage disposal pipes, and provision of sewage treatment plants in eight more towns of Punjab. These are Hoshiarpur, Phagwara South, Rajpura, Patran, Lehraghaga, Derabassi, Khanuri and Jalandhar. The project will be taken up at a cost of Rs 465.07 crore.

Dasuya (Hoshiarpur) : An industrial unit located on the Chandigarh-Hoshiarpur-Jammu highway in Randhawa village, near here, has been openly polluting the environment for the past many years.Owned by a known liquor baron of the region, Chadha Estate is not only causing air pollution but the underground water has also been polluted to a great extent.

An assessment of the implementation of the much-celebrated National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) of the Centre for Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh has found that the scheme has had the least impact on Punjab followed by Haryana. However, the scheme has met with substantial success in Himachal Pradesh.

What was once an arid land, now wears a bright orange hue. From Punjab

Hoshiarpur: Wild animals, especially wild boar and blue bull, have been damaging crops in the Kandi belt, giving sleepless nights to farmers.

Ludhiana: Usually, environmental issues are at the bottom of the priority list of elected representatives, but Avinash Rai Khanna, BJP MP from Hoshairpur, claims to be different. At a recent visit to Ludhiana, he urged people to save one litre of water each.