Ludhiana:
The members of an expert committee appointed by the Punjab government to address the concerns of protesting farmers who have been opposing the compressed biogas (CBG) projects in Punjab, have mentioned that these environment friendly projects have no direct connection with cancer.
The committee consists of Dr. Manoj Shrivastav, Principal Scientist ICAR, Dr. Sachin Kumar, NIBE Kapurthala, Dr. Tarak Mondal, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineer, IIT Ropar, M.P. Singh, Director PEDA, Kulbir Singh Sandhu, Joint Director, Amandeep Singh Sidhu, Department of Organic Farming, PAU, Vijay Kumar SE, PPCB, Dr. Pardeep Kumar Mishra СРСВ, Dr. Kunal Jain, Department of Oncology, DMCH Ludhiana, Dr. G.S. Brar, Department of Oncology, DMCH Ludhiana, Dr. Sarit Sharma, Department of Community Medicine, DMCH Ludhiana, Dr. Shalini, Department of Pharmacology, DMCH Ludhiana, Dr. Virendra Kumar Vijay, IREDA Professor, IIT Delhi and Dr. Sarabjit Sooch, Department of Bio Energy, PAU.
Dr. Gurpreet Singh Brar, a Professor and Head of the Department of Surgical Oncology at DMCH Cancer Care Centre, stated that he and his team have conducted a study, including held a review of previous studies in foreign countries, and found that CBG plants have no direct connection with cancer. However, the effluents released by CBG plants must be within permissible limits, and the plants must strictly adhere to norms set by government and department to ensure these plants work smoothly.
Dr. Sachin Kumar, a scientist from Sardar Swaran Singh National Institute of Bio-Energy and a member of the expert committee, also stated that most of the doubts raised by members of the Kisan Sangharsh Committee have been addressed in the meetings. He also emphasized that farmers should consider adopting CBG plants as these are eco- friendly projects and with these paddy straw burning menace can also be eliminated properly.
The Committee had also held talks with the farmers and addressed the concerns and clarified all doubts raised by farmer unions regarding the CBG projects.