Five months after Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari sounded the alarm in the Lok Sabha over rampant pollution in the city’s three seasonal streams, Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav has written to him, asserting that all identified wastewater discharge points into Sukhna Choe, Northern Choe and Patiala Ki Rao have been identified and closed.
In a DO letter dated May 5, 2026, a copy of which was made available to The Tribune on Monday, Yadav informed Tewari that the matter was examined in consultation with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and Chandigarh Pollution Control Committee (CPCC) — and that regular monitoring of the choes is now being carried out by National Green Tribunal (NGT) through Engineering Wing of the Chandigarh Administration, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MCC) and CPCB.
REMEDIAL CLAIMS
The detailed annexure attached to the minister’s letter states that 13 discharge points releasing wastewater into Sukhna Choe were identified by CPCC and have since been tapped and closed by MCC. Similarly, 15 discharge points into the N-Choe and 5 into Patiala Ki Rao have been identified and sealed. On Patiala Ki Rao, the annexure acknowledged a cross-boundary challenge — the stream enters Chandigarh carrying untreated water from Punjab, a matter that Chandigarh has “repeatedly raised” with the Punjab Government.
The letter also flagged structural vulnerability in the drainage system, noting that Chandigarh’s network, established in the 1950s, is particularly sensitive to damage during heavy rainfall and requires periodic maintenance and repair.
THE DADUMAJRA RECKONING
On the festering legacy-waste issue at the Dadumajra dumpsite — which Tewari had flagged as a symbol of repeated broken promises before NGT, Punjab and Haryana High Court and a Parliamentary Committee — the minister’s response presented a mixed picture.
The letter claimed that 5.10 lakh metric tonnes of legacy waste identified at the site has been completely remediated and approximately 28 acres of land reclaimed. Of this, 10 acres has been earmarked for an Integrated Waste Processing Plant by IOCL for wet waste and 8 acres for a sanitary landfill.
However, the annexure acknowledged that approximately 12,500 metric tonnes of legacy waste remains to be processed. It attributed the delay to constraints in capping the site and the suspension of bio-soil disposal in neighbouring states from January 2026. No revised deadline for full clearance was given.
On waste generation, the letter stated that Chandigarh generates an average of 500 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day, for which a 100 per cent door-to-door collection system is in place, and the city currently possesses more than 100 per cent treatment capacity across MSW categories.
THE CONTEXT
Tewari, a former Union minister and the Congress heavyweight, had raised the issue during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha on December 5, 2025, warning that Chandigarh’s ecological backbone — comprising Sukhna Choe, N-Choe and Patiala Ki Rao — was “choking” under sewage discharge, garbage dumping and chronic administrative indifference. He had told the House that the Capital Region’s natural drainage system, once integral to Le Corbusier’s original city plan, had degenerated to a point where “it has become difficult to even breathe around them”.
At the time, Tewari had also cited the government’s own admission in response to his starred question that wastewater continued to enter the N-Choe — pointing to lapses in monitoring, absent rejuvenation plans and failure of several sewage treatment plants to transmit real-time effluent data. He had urged the Parliamentary Affairs Minister, present in the House, to ensure that both the Home Minister and the Environment Minister were apprised of the situation, given Chandigarh’s status as a Union territory.
The minister’s May 5 letter appears to be the formal Central response to that parliamentary intervention.
Railways examining Chandigarh-Lucknow Express extension to Pratapgarh
Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw has informed Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari that his request for extending Train No. 12232 Chandigarh-Lucknow Express up to Maa Belha Devi Dham Pratapgarh Junction is “being examined” and that “necessary action will be taken after the examination”.
Vaishnaw’s reply, dated April 29, came in response to Tewari’s letter of March 23, in which the MP had flagged the inconvenience faced by Chandigarh commuters who frequently travel to Pratapgarh for daily work. Currently, passengers must board the Lucknow SF Express from Chandigarh — which runs via Ambala, Yamunanagar, Roorkee, Moradabad and Bareilly Junction — and change trains at Lucknow for onward travel to Pratapgarh, adding time and cost to their journey.
