With special demands, Greens set agenda

As the assembly election campaign picks up in Punjab, environmentalists have flocked together to squeeze in their agenda in the political manifesto of all political parties.

Baba Balbir Singh Sechewal, a renowned environmentalist in Kapurthala district, on Friday demanded that all contestants in the assembly polls, regardless of their political affiliation, should be made to give an undertaking that they would address the environment-related problems.

Making an appeal to voters, he said, if the contestants who refused to give this undertaking on an oath should be boycotted by the people.

Umendra Dutt, another environmentalist in Malwa, joined his cause expressing serious concern at the degradation of soil and water in the region.

He said unless the political leaders were awakened to the need of the people, the crisis would only deepen in future.