[+] Show More

Meanwhile, the doctors conduct a quick examination of the rhino including measuring its length and breadth, taking a blood sample and clipping a piece of the ear for later identification. A radio collar with a GPS locator is affixed around the neck of the rhino to facilitate tracking of the rhino post-release in Manas.

After the examination, the rhino is rolled onto the platform and the bulldozer then moves the platform to where the crate that will be used to transport the rhino is located. Next, a carefully coordinated exercise is undertaken which first involves bringing the rhino into the crate with the platform followed by administration of the revivant and removal of the platform once the rhino is awake to fully close and lock the crate. An exercise that involves at least 20 people, two bulldozers and ropes and chains to execute in the correct way. A crane is then brought in to carefully raise the crate and lower it onto a truck. Throughout this whole operation the rhino is watered at regular intervals to keep it cool. The same sequence is repeated for the sub-adult female as well. Once the rhinos have adjusted to the crates we retire for a quick lunch and a trip back to our rooms to pack our luggage.

The Release

It is time now to start the long road journey through the night to Manas National Park, located about 260 km away in the north of Assam. The convoy starts with a police van in front providing security followed by the trucks with the rhino crates behind which the various other vehicles such as the veterinarians and us follow. Except for a temporary breakdown of one of the rhino trucks and the crane driver getting lost and finding the rest of the convoy again the journey through the night passes off uneventfully. We reach Manas just as dawn is breaking at around 5 am.

Everything is ready. Two ramps have been hollowed out for the trucks to facilitate the release of the rhinos. Everyone takes a short break as the trucks make their way to the release site. The release site is a small clearing in front of dense grasslands. The trucks are in place. The post release rhino monitoring and tracking teams are ready on elephants nearby. We make our way to one of the machans set up next to the release site to observe and record the proceedings below. The crates are then lowered from the trucks by the crane. The doctors do one last check of the rhinos within. They seem to be fine and look ready to get out and explore their new home. People are cleared from the site. It is time.

First, the gate of the crate containing the calf is raised. She comes out, understandably a little miffed at being confined in a crate for the night. So she tries to bite the truck. She then turns around and runs to her mother’s crate, which is also being raised. The calf passes in front of the mother and veers off. However, in the heat of the moment and since rhinos have poor eyesight, they both miss seeing each other and the calf vanishes into the jungle. The released mother instantly goes over to her daughter’s cage. She then wanders over to some feed from her daughter’s cage kept under a machan. There are about 10 people on the machan including me observing and recording the proceedings. She is huge and fills the viewfinder of my video camera. For a moment I’m stunned as the sheer size of the rhino belatedly hits me. Quite literally, as if reading my thoughts, while turning away from the machan the rhino below us does hit one of the wooden pillars of the machan with her side. The whole machan is rattled and sways but fortunately for all of us the rhino moves forward and the machan stays. The rhino is presumably following the smell of her calf as rhinos have an excellent sense of smell, better than their eyesight.

The rhino then moves to the truck of her daughter again but this time approaches the driver’s window. The poor driver inside is shocked to suddenly find this huge rhino filling up his window. He shrinks back and the rhino disturbed by his sudden movement also moves away. Now, some colourful plastic chairs placed a little distance away from the release site attract her attention. She charges them and plays the rhino version of football with them, shattering a few chairs instantly in the process! She soon settles down though and veers off into the adjacent grasslands and eventually into the forest. The post-release monitoring and tracking team soon sets off on elephants after her to track her by her GPS radio collar and check if she has united with her calf.

We all heave a sigh of relief and the translocation team is happy that, except for the brief period of excitement towards the end, everything has gone to plan. The story has a fitting end with the news coming in a few days later from the post release monitoring team that the mother and daughter had united and were settling down in their new home. Happy endings happen in the natural world too.

Epilogue

A second phase of translocation soon followed in the New Year from 17th to 18th January 2011 and this time a total of 4 rhinos were translocated in one shot that included 2 females, one male and one sub-adult male. In spite of the huge task of translocating and releasing 4 rhinos, never done before in India, the Translocation Core Committee ensured that everything went without a hitch.

A Chronological Photo Essay of the Translocation

Hover your mouse over the thumbnails for photo captions.

IRV 2020

The IRV 2020 is a joint programme of the Department of Environment and Forests – Government of Assam, WWF-India and the International Rhino Foundation (IRF) with support from the Bodoland Territorial Council, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the local communities. The programme’s vision is to increase Assam’s rhino population to 3000 by 2020, which will be done by wild-to-wild translocation from Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary to Manas and Dibru Saikhowa National Parks as well as Laokhowa and Burachopari Wildlife Sanctuaries.

Assam accounts for the largest population of Indian rhinoceros. Though rhino numbers in the state have grown from 2000 in 2005 to over 2200 in 2009, more than 90% of these live in just one Protected Area, which is the Kaziranga National Park. The IRV 2020 programme aims to secure the long-term survival of wild rhinos in Assam by expanding their distribution to reduce risks like disease, in-breeding depression and mass mortality.

Under this programme, the first phase of wild-to-wild translocations was carried out in April 2008 when two male rhinos were re-introduced into Manas National Park from Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary. The current translocations are a part of phase two of the translocations. During this second phase, a total of eighteen rhinos are proposed to be translocated from Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary and Kaziranga National Park to Manas National Park in batches.

[-] Show Less

[+] Show More

But worryingly though, the team came across logging activities in this forest block and adjoining beats by the Madhya Pradesh State Forest Corporation (MPSFC), an enterprise of the Forest Department that extracts forest timber and other forest produces to be sold commercially. Nearly 5600 hectares of forest had been handed over to the Corporation in 2009 and 2010. In addition, the whole Kopijhola-Sonekhar forest block was proposed to be handed over to Forest Corporation to start commercial production operations.

The interventions
As this transfer would have led to a rapid loss of the forests in the block and fragmentation of the Kanha-Pench corridor, WWF-India’s team presented the results of the tiger occupancy survey and the rapid survey to Mr. L.K. Chowdhary, IFS and Chief Conservator of Forests (CCF), Seoni Circle, Madhya Pradesh Forest Department and recommended that this handover be stopped. Not only did the CCF act on the survey results and WWF-India’s recommendations, he also put an end to all existing logging activities in it. This decision will help in keeping the forest block intact.

Going forward, WWF-India is working with the Forest Department to ensure the activities of MPSFC are limited to the existing plantations and all new felling and planting activities are regulated throughout the Kanha-Pench corridor. This will maintain the connectivity between the important tiger populations of Kanha and Pench, thereby contributing to the dispersal of tigers and long term survival of their populations in Central India’s forests.

[-] Show Less

© SML Mandla Office/ WWF-India

A photo of a lime kiln

Overcoming the lure to make a few quick bucks
A few months ago, in 2010, the villagers of Bagaspur were approached by a lime kiln owner from a nearby village who promised them money to develop the village and construct the village road. He even offered to construct a temple for their use. In return he wanted the villagers to let him open a lime kiln in the village He had secured the required permission from forest department to source the wood from the surrounding reserve forest.

The villagers realized that the heating requirements of a lime kiln for a five day period were 2 – 3 truck loads of wood. The lime kiln owner had an assured supply of only a truck load of wood with the permissions in place. He wanted the villagers to source the remaining wood requirements from the reserve forest, illegally! He offered to pay for such illegally collected wood. The villagers, however, were against even sourcing fallen branches for the kiln from the forest, let alone felling green trees for wood on such a scale. They refused straight away.

[-] Show Less

[+] Show More

Threat to the Kanha-Pench Corridor
South Central Railway has proposed the diversion of approximately 70 hectares of forest land falling within the Kanha-Pench Corridor for conversion of the current Nainpur-Balaghat narrow gauge section to broad gauge. This proposed conversion is part of the larger Gondia-Jabalpur Broad Gauge project in Central India. There is also a proposed Nainpur-Balaghat state highway that will come up almost parallel to the railway line. To ascertain the potential impacts of these expansions a site inspection was carried out by WWF-India, under the leadership of tiger biologist Joseph Vattakaven.

Key Conservation Recommendations
Based on the ground-truthing conducted, the report states that the proposed diversion of forest land from the Kanha-Pench Corridor for conversion of the existing narrow guage railway line to broad gauge will have an impact on tiger dispersal and viability in the corridor. In addition, the proposed state highway is a threat to the movement of animals because of its proximity to the railway line and will cause more animals to be killed due to the increased vehicular traffic. The expansion of the railway line and road will also impact two crucial linkages in the corridor.

To address these issues and other threats facing this crucial tiger corridor some of the key conservation recommendations proposed in the report for keeping the Kanha-Pench Corridor intact are:

• Nainpur-Balaghat narrow guage line should not be converted to broad guage.
• Frequency and movement of traffic on the existing road next to the railway line must be regulated and even diverted away without further widening.
• Resorts construction in the corridor near crucial linkages must be prevented or regulated.
• Monoculture plantations currenty being undertaken should be stopped and plantations of mixed forest trees and plants suitable for wild ungulates should be taken up instead.
• Timely and adequate compensation of cattle killed in the corridor by tigers and leopards must be made a priority by the forest department and local NGOs to prevent poisoning of tigers and human-tiger conflict.
• Alternative and sustainable livelihood options should be provided to the local stakeholders in the corridor to reduce fuel wood dependancy.
• Anti-poaching exercises, joint patrolling and monitoring of the corridor should take place at regular intervals to prevent poaching of tigers, leopards, prey and poisoning of kills.

As the author of the report and Senior Coordinator, Tiger Conservation at WWF-India, Joseph Vattakaven concludes, “The Kanha-Pench Corridor is one of the few extensive tracts of wildlife habitat covering an area of over 16,000 sq km. Such a significant corridor should be further protected rather than allowing development projects to fragment and deteriorate its utility.”

[-] Show Less

[+] Show More

After hundreds of years of practice and perfection in making a living out of hunting, they were suddenly left without a profession. With no formal training or assistance to help them adapt to the new law of the land, they continued hunting covertly. According to Mr. Golla Krishnamurthy, India Forest Service, who has worked in the Panna Tiger Reserve, “They mainly hunt big game and trade the skins with middlemen in cities for further illegal export. They hunt animals like deer, wild boar and other small herbivores for staple food on a day to day basis.”

The new law, combined with the historical stigma and the fact that they are traditional nomads left the Pardis out in the cold. Village after village viewed them suspiciously and drove them from town. This discrimination and lack of opportunity forced the Pardis to the very margins of society, where their poaching activities were a means of survival.

The way forward
According to sources in the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department, a vast amount of the wildlife poached in that state, particularly in and around Panna Tiger Reserve, has links to Pardis. But serving India’s big wildlife traders and illegal trade mafia hasn’t improved life for the Pardis; they remain impoverished. Surely there has to be a way to empower this community and save wildlife. The key is education for the next generation, so they have opportunities to earn a decent living on the right side of the law.

WWF-India, along with the forest department, has been conducting a “Residential Bridge Course” at two locations around Panna, under the government’s “Sarva Shiksha Abyiyaan” (Education for All) scheme. The nine-month course prepares the children to enter the formal education system. Their stay at the student hostel also helps them make the shift from a nomadic to more mainstream lifestyle. Simultaneously, the adults are offered training in alternative professions.

Though it’s too early to tell what paths the Pardis children will take, they are enjoying the opportunity to attend school. “I’ve been studying in the school in Kunjwan for the past two years. Before I started schooling I used to stay at home, though I never liked that,” says 9-year-old Bamina. “My father and mother used to roam around a lot to provide us food. Even then, we had to go hungry many a time. But that has changed now. I like it here in school. We play a lot of games and also study. I’m learning many new things.”

And though it took two years of persuasion to get her into school, 11-year-old Chiranga now enjoys attending classes. She has even taken it upon herself to educate her family members. “My father used to shoot wild boar earlier. Members of my family used to hunt tigers and partridges. But now they no longer hunt,” she says. “My mother now sells ‘manihari’ (traditional cosmetics) like bindis, kumkum and traditional medicines, while my father sells ‘rudraksha’ beads (talismans).”

Dr. Diwakar Sharma, Associate Director of WWF-India’s Species & Landscapes Programme, says these two enthusiastic students speak for the rest of their classmates. “Once they join the school they do not want to return to their old lifestyle that was filled with hardship and poverty. They are now filled with a desire to learn and succeed.”

Mita Goswami, Director of Environment Education with WWF-India, adds that the Pardis’ unique upbringing has its advantages: “They are a treasure trove of information on our wildlife. During the nature walk we had with them, we were pleasantly taken aback by the wealth of knowledge they had on nature; from insects to trees and birds to mammals.”

In what may be a fortuitous development in the long Pardis history, the children’s knowledge of their local environment may one day help save the wildlife they used to hunt. “When they grow up, their in-depth knowledge about wild flora and fauna can develop them into excellent nature guides, nature interpreters or researchers,” concludes Sangita Saxena, WWF-India’s State Director for M.P. and Chhattisgarh.

[-] Show Less

[+] Show More

The study states that pharmaceutical production ‘severely contaminates surface, ground and drinking water in the investigated region and that the previously demonstrated pharmaceutical releases from PETL is still occurring‘. The Patancheru Enviro Tech Limited (PETL) is the common effluent treatment plant that was set up in 1995 to treat the discharge from around 90 bulk drug manufacturing units located in the Patancheru area, including Dr Reddy’s Labs, Aurobindo Pharma and Newland Labs.

The treated effluent from PETL is discharged into the Iskkavagu stream, which then flows into the Nakkavagu river. The Nakkavagu river then runs into the Manjeera river which ultimately joins the Godavari river. Manjeera river is the major drinking water source for the city of Hyderabad while Godavari river is one of the major rivers in southern India whose waters are used to irrigate millions of acres of agricultural land in Andhra Pradesh. Although there are three to four other streams that flow into the Nakkavagu river the Swedish team’s findings showed the Iskavagu and Nakkavagu to be the most contaminated of the water sources in Patancheru.

There are 20 villages in and around the industrial area with an estimated population of a lakh people. Plus, there are an additional 75,000 people in the Patancheru suburb. Pocharam and Ganapathigudem, two villages that are located closest to PETL, bear the brunt of this potential ecological disaster. The villages lie downstream of the Iskavagu stream. This has resulted in severe contamination of all ground and surface water sources in and around the villages.

Pocharam is located roughly a kilometre from PETL. By accident or design, the administrative boundary of Pocharam gram panchayat ends a few feet before PETL. The treatment plant effectively falls in the jurisdiction of the GHMC. Although topographically the village and the treatment plant are contiguous they are governed by different laws legally. The villagers have to travel to Hyderabad for any matter concerning the plant. Meanwhile, the plant sits on the other side of the Iskavagu stream and the villagers can do nothing. “If the plant was within our gram panchayat boundary we would have had the authority to close them down, “says Praveen Singh, a resident of Pocharam.

Effluent from PETL plant flowing into Iskavagu stream in Patancheru, Hyderabad

As seen from the photos taken of the Iskavagu stream, which flows beside the PETL plant and where the treated effluents are released, the stream surface is covered by a layer of thick white foam. Basketball sized flecks of foam are blown around by wind over a greater area. The stream water is dark brown in colour and smells bad. Praveen Singh also added that when the foam lands on skin it causes severe itching and rashes while contact with eyes lead to eye burn and redness.

Flecks of foam being blown from the surface of Iskavagu stream, Patancheru, Hyderabad

According to the villagers, apart from mosquitoes no other life forms exist in the stream or in the river. According to other residents of Pocharam village, the quantity of white foam and the bad smell increase greatly in the night. The villagers allege that this is because the plant and the tanker trucks (that normally carry the effluent to the plant during the day) resort to open dumping of the pharmaceutical waste into the stream in the night without treatment.

It is hard to independently verify the villager‘s claims as no government agency has thought it fit to conduct a study to assess the potential social and health problems caused by the presence of such high levels of drugs in their local environment. Satti Reddy, 60 yrs old, who is a resident of Ganpatigudem village, alleges that not a single government official came to visit their village even after the Swedish studies generated much international and national media interest and reached even the attention of the Indian prime minister. Sadly, official apathy seems to be the norm for the Patancheru area when it comes to protecting the environment.

Dr. A. Kishan Rao, a medical practitioner and member of Citizen’s Against Pollution (CAP) recalls the genesis of a remarkable people’s movement in the late 1980s against the rampant dumping of chemical industrial waste in the Patancheru area. The Patancheru industrial area was set up in the mid-1970s to stimulate industrial growth in Hyderabad. But in the rush to industrialise many of the environmental regulations governing the proper disposal of industrial waste were either overlooked or unenforced. “This resulted in,“ says Dr. Rao, “illegal and often open dumping of industrial waste in open areas not just from local trucks but by trucks that came all the way from the neighbouring state of Karnataka!“

In 1986, CAP launched an awareness campaign against pollution. Along with affected communities they formed the Patancheru Anti Pollution Committee (PAPC). The activists staged dharnas, relay hunger strikes and demanded an end to the pollution. “We marched to the office of the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (PCB) demanding an end to the pollution,“ says Prof. K. Purushottam Reddy, President of CAP, recalling those times. In 1987, nearly 2000 people marched 40 km from Patancheru to the AP State Assembly and presented a list of demands to then Chief Minister N. T. Rama Rao. Some of the demands included the construction of an effluent treatment plant for each industrial unit, adequate compensation for degraded agricultural land and supply of safe drinking water to effected villages.

PAPC’s continued pressure resulted in the Medak district administration serving notice to 22 industries in Patancheru. The court set a deadline of September 3, 1987 to build individual ETPs. This order wasn’t complied with. The PAPC then started its second, more innovative phase of public protest. They blocked the National Highway 9 connecting Hyderabad and Mumbai with 500 bullocks! In October, the farmers filed a petition in the AP High Court against 20 of the 22 polluting industries. The subsequent High Court ruling went in favour of the industries.

The farmers then approached the Supreme Court (SC) through prominent environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta in 1989. The half a decade long legal battle resulted in the SC asking the Nagpur-based National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to conduct a thorough study on industrial pollution in the Nakkavagu basin. Based on the NEERI report the SC ordered the industries to cease the release of effluents into local water bodies. The SC ordered that compensation for the affected families must be paid by the polluting industries. The apex court also directed the local authorities to provide safe drinking water to the affected villages.

But the compensation paid has been uneven. According to activists, 2.13 crores were paid to families spread across 10 villages. Although less than adequate, it was a start. But even this has petered out in recent years according to the villagers. In addition, a drinking water pipeline was laid by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply & Sewerage Board.

Meanwhile, a district judge who conducted an investigation pointed out that the PETL was itself a major contributor to pollution. In 2000, the SC expressed ‘anguish’ that no action plan had been formulated to tackle the problem even after a decade. That same year a plan to build a 22 km pipeline from Patancheru to Amberpet, in the heart of Hyderabad, was devised by which effluents would be taken from Patancheru and dumped into the Musi river that flows through Hyderabad. The pipeline is now almost ready, though it is yet to start functioning.

“We are not happy with it because unless you treat the effluents at the beginning and at the end you are essentially dumping the pollution in the heart of the city instead of at the peripheries, “says K. S. Murthy, an advocate who represents the farmers by the banks of the Musi river who moved the AP High Court against the plan. According to him, the Patancheru case is about reducing pollution and securing compensation, both of which have been less than satisfactory.

The AP Pollution Control Board meanwhile says that it has the situation under control. A PCB official, who didn’t want to be named, said that the pollution is showing a ‘decreasing trend‘. “After the pipeline is completed the effluents will not be dumped into local water sources in Patancheru, “he added.

The villagers living in Patancheru seem resigned to their fate. When they talk about the pollution it is in a matter of fact way. Ganapathigudem is a village of 600 odd people located 2 km downstream of the PETL. Many villagers own tracts of agricultural land in the area that they say produce below average yields. Srisailam Goud, a resident of Pocharam village said, “We used to get 40 bags of paddy per acre which has now reduced to 10 bags“. A few of the better educated ones get some of the menial jobs in the factories. Some of the economically better off families have sold their land and houses and moved to the city. The infrastructure needs of Hyderabad have brought some relief. A massive ring road, meant to ease the traffic woes of the city, is being built and the north-western section skirts Pocharam village. Land was acquired from some villagers at government rates. Though below market rates, villagers lucky enough to receive it moved out rather than stay here.

According to Dr Kishan Rao, a more serious problem, which can lead to grave public health problems in the future, is the development of antibiotic resistance due to the very high levels of antibiotics in the discharge from the PETL. The Swedish reasearch team also expressed the same concerns. According to them, “The most obvious risk associated with the findings is that the high levels of broad-spectrum antibiotics could induce the development of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms.“ Antibiotic resistance develops because the bacteria present in the environment are put under selection pressure by the high levels of antibiotics found in the water sources. What this means is that only those microorganisms that have developed resistance against the antibiotics survive. These surviving microorganisms will then increase in numbers and spread in the environment. These resistance characters, which are nothing but genes, could be transferred to human pathogens through horizontal gene transfer. This is when genes from one microorganism are transferred to another microorganism. This could lead to the development of antibiotic resistant pathogens against which the existing antibiotics may be ineffective. Previous studies done in and around Pencillin manufacturing sites in China have shown this to be happening leading to the development of multi drug resistant bacterial strains.

“Not a single Indian scientist or doctor has conducted follow up studies to the Swedish study“, laments Dr. Kishan Rao. He expresses concern over the possible contamination of the food chain through food grains and vegetables grown using the contaminated water or through cow/buffalo milk from cattle that drink the contaminated water. These correspondents had indeed seen cattle from the Pocharam and Ganapatigudem villages drinking from the foam covered Iskavagu stream just downstream of the PETL plant. The villagers expressed their inability to stop the cattle from drinking the polluted water.

In the case of Patancheru, due to the presence of extremely high levels of antibiotics and other drugs in the local water sources no one knows what health problems they will give rise to in future through the development of previously unknown drug resistant microorganisms. As the Swedish research team’s paper suggests, “The increasing occurrence of multi-resistant pathogens is a serious global threat to human health and is promoted by the heavy use of antibiotics in human and veterinary medicine. “ The problem is even graver at the PETL plant as it uses approximately 20% raw human faeces to maintain biological activity. As human faeces contains pathogens and other microorganisms it is possible that such close contact between the pathogens, resistant bacteria already existing in the effluent and the high concentration of antibiotics might lead to development of new multi-drug resistant pathogens. This could have grave effect on current treatment strategies that depend on antibiotics like Ciprofloxacin.

Compounding the existing problem of high levels of pollution is the lack of regulatory oversight. The APPCB, according to activists, is not capable of monitoring antibiotic pollution because it lacks trained personnel and equipment.

Activists say that the problem can be tackled by having individual effluent treatment plants for each industrial unit with effective and regular upstream and downstream monitoring of effluents. Dr. Kishan Rao estimates that setting up of individual ETPs will cost between 1-3 percent of an average pharma company’s turnover. But as long as companies worry more about toplines and bottomlines that will remain unfulfilled.

Recommended Citation: Dhara, Tushar., Cherukupalli, Anil. The Cost of Cheap Medicines: Antibiotic Pollution in Patancheru. http://anilcherukupalli.com/blog/2010/03/07/the-cost-of-cheap-medicines-antibiotic-pollution-in-patancheru/

[-] Show Less