An investigation carried out by The Observer newspaper, in 2009, revealed that the cause of contamination of soil and ground water in Malwa region of Punjab is the fly ash that emanates from coal burnt at thermal power plants, which contains high levels of uranium and ash as the region has state's two biggest coal-fired power stations (Chamberlain, 2009; NDTV, 2009). In 2009, Greenpeace Research Laboratories conducted the study in 50 villages in Muktsar, Bathinda and Ludhiana districts and revealed that 20% of the samples showed nitrate levels above the safety limit of 50 mg/L, established by WHO, the study connected it with high use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (Garg and Balwant, 2010).