Meet Balbir Singh Seechewal, the 'Eco Baba' who revived 160-km long river

Padma Shri awardee Balbir Singh Seechewal, who is the only Asian recipient of TIME Magazine's 'Hero of Environment' award, had received global recognition after he revived the almost dead 160-km-long Kali Bein, a river sacred to Sikhism. In an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat, Seechewal said that his dream is to rejuvenate India's longest river - the Ganga.

Kapurthala (Punjab):At a time when the entire world is grappling with the issue of water pollution, environmentalist and Padma Shri awardee Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal has emerged as a ray of hope for the people of Punjab.

Seechewal, popularly known as 'Eco Baba' hogged the global limelight by reviving the almost dead 160-km-long Kali Bein, a river sacred to Sikhism, and also developing low-cost community-managed micro-sewage technologies.

Seechewal said that he started the river revival work way back in 2000. At the time, he was the only person who had pledged to clean the 160-km-long Kali Bein in his own capacity. However, with time, around 2,000 people from the adjoining villages joined the mission and subsequently succeeded in reviving the entire river.

The 55-year-old has also earned accolades for developing an underground low-cost sewerage system that collects sewage water from ponds and treats it in a natural way. The treated water can then be used for irrigation.

In an exclusive interview with ETV Bharat, Seechewal said that his dream is to rejuvenate India's longest river - the Ganga.

"Now, I am working on developing a low-cost community-managed micro-sewage technology system. Every week, village heads settled along the Ganga visit a village near Jalandhar to understand the sewage technologies and to replicate them in their respective villages. We are educating the visiting villagers on how to collect the domestic sewage for simple treatment in open ponds by natural methods and then reuse it for irrigating the fields," said Seechewal.

Wearing his trademark saffron robes, the only Asian winner of TIME Magazine's Hero of Environment award explained that the cost of setting up the treatment tanks and supplying the treated water to the fields through a pipeline is very low compared to the use of electrical water pumps that heavily drain out underground water.

Moreover, he said the treatment techniques that have been adopted by more than 150 villages in Punjab, including 100 located on the Kali Bein, ensure that no polluted water flows into the surface water channels.

According to him, a village with a population of 14,000 to 15,000 requires a treatment plant on 27 acres of land.

However, for bigger towns and cities this model will not work, as they would need sewage treatment plants.

Besides cleaning the rivulet in just two years by deploying over 3,000 local volunteers in July 2000, Sant Seechewal has also played an important role in 're-greening' its banks by raising medicinal and fruit-bearing orchards.

The rivulet's revival has also recharged the local water table as the hand-pumps which had gone dry for the past four decades, are now yielding water, he said pointing towards the fields.

Interestingly, former President APJ Abdul Kalam had also visited the village twice - in 2006 and 2008- to understand and acknowledge Sant Seechewal’s techniques.

In 2016, the then Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra had also visited Seechewal to understand the wastewater management system and to seek help for cleaning the highly-polluted Yamuna river.