Panel gets 4 months for report on uranium presence in groundwater

The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Centre's six-member scientific committee to complete the study within four months to bring out the impact of fly ash from the Bathinda thermal power plant on the elevated level of uranium content groundwater in the Malwa belt.

The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Centre's six-member scientific committee to complete the study within four months to bring out the impact of fly ash from the Bathinda thermal power plant on the elevated level of uranium content groundwater in the Malwa belt.

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The directions came from the division bench headed by chief justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul on Friday on a public interest litigation filed by advocate BS Loomba, seeking effective steps to check uranium content in Punjab's groundwater.

The committee comprising Dr RM Tripathi, Ajay Kumar and SK Sahoo from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, and assisted by one member each from the Atomic and Minerals Directorate and Panjab University, would also have Dr Sekhar Muddu of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

However, the court was informed that the committee would require a time frame of eight months to consider temporal effects due to pre and post-monsoon circumstances.