mahal amritsar district dr j s thakur probing incidence of dna mutation in a punjab village cites a dangerous cocktail of pesticides and heavy metal industrial wastes water they say gives life but here in this village it just claims lives says an aging swaran singh who lost one of his sons to cancer scientists point out that it requires a long time for groundwater to turn toxic a dangerous cocktail of pesticides and heavy metal industrial wastes is the cause says dr thakurmukhtar singh a 75yearold retired headmaster in mahal knows this well for the past 14 years every morning he has been picking up two jerry cans and riding his bicycle about a kilometre away to the gndu campus thats where i get my drinking water from says mukhtar who helped form a pollution control committee in amritsarpart of the problem possibly dates back to the green revolution in the mid60s and 70s when pesticide use became common didar singh a 65yearold marginal farmer recalls that in the early 60s and before only organic manure such as cowdung was used to fertilize the fields since then the use of fertilizers has increased manifold says didar whose brother died of cancer agricultural runoff and irrigation of fields with the polluted drain water are the key reasons for the presence of pesticides in food says the pgimer reportbut rapid industrialization without any attention to the possible fallouts on health is also a major factor leading to the current state of affairs the five big effluent drains studied are budha nala in ludhiana huddiara and tung dhab drains in amritsar kala singha nala in jalandhar and east bein drain in nawanshahar the buddha nala receives effluents from 400 electroplating units in ludhiana amritsar and jalandhar also have units involved in electroplating manufacturing switches and bulbs and metal industry that along with hospital waste could be the cause of high mercury contamination of ground waterin mahals elementary school many children complain of rashes and small boils between the wedges of their fingers and hands class iii teacher kiranbir counts seven such children in the class my fingers itch badly says shivam sharma a class ii student rohitashwa a pharmacist at the local government dispensary says that scabies and skin rash are common among children and womengastrointestinal skin eye and bone problems are significantly higher in these areas when compared with 10 villages not in proximity of these drains which were also part of the study theres higher prevalence of numbness of fingers and loss of fingernails or hair early indicators of neurotoxicity mercury adversely affects the nervous system cases of spontaneous abortions among women and slow growth among children are considerably highhousewife jaswinder kaur says her two sistersinlaw twice lost their babies due to miscarriages it has affected their marital lives now they suffer from insecurity and anxiety over whether they will ever be able to have children they suffer in guilt she says a few kilometres away sitting in her