in february 1999, a Delhi newspaper reported that a tubewell sunk to a depth of about 200 feet (61 metres) by Suruchi Dyeing Udyog, a factory south of the G T Road in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, was yielding yellow-coloured water. Arun Agarwal, the factory’s owner, was quoted in the report as saying: “Initially, we thought it was surface impurities that came up with the water. But then we found it was the groundwater itself. It is pure poison.” The Central Ground Water Authority ( cgwa ) found para-nitrophenol, an organic compound, in the water in a concentration of 0.54 milligrammes per litre (mg/l). The permissible limit of the compound is 0.001 mg/l. Obviously, some factory in the area that was pumping untreated effluent into the groundwater.

Earlier, in January 1994, the Central Pollution Control Board ( cpcb ), Delhi, had undertaken the first major ground