Balbir Singh Seechewalਬਲਬੀਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਸੀਚੇਵਾਲ

Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal (born 1962), widely known as Eco Baba, is a Sikh spiritual leader and environmentalist from Seechewal village in Jalandhar district. From 2000 he led the volunteer clean-up of the roughly 160-km Kali Bein, was named a TIME Hero of the Environment in 2008, was selected for the Padma Shri in 2017 and has been a Rajya Sabha member since 2022.

Early life

Seechewal was born on 2 February 1962 in Seechewal village, Jalandhar district, into a farming family. Hindustan Times says he left his BA studies in the second year and worked for a time as a mason. In 1981 he came into contact with Sant Avtar Singh and began living at the saint's Nirmal Kutia in the village. After the Sant died on 6 June 1988, Seechewal succeeded him as head of the Kutia, in the Nirmala Sikh tradition.

Service began at home. Through the Ik Onkar Charitable Trust he got the village a round-the-clock water supply, a sewer system and toilets in every house in the late 1990s, with the villagers' help. The trust later added a school, a college and stadiums. Seechewal served twice as sarpanch, and in 2007–08 the Centre gave the village its Nirmal Gram award.

Career

The Kali Bein rises in Hoshiarpur district and meets the Sutlej at Harike. Sikh tradition holds that Guru Nanak received his enlightenment on its banks near Sultanpur Lodhi. By the 1990s it was, in TIME's words, a filthy drain: six towns and more than 40 villages emptied their waste into it.

On 16 July 2000 Seechewal stepped into the sludge with a handful of volunteers and began a kar sewa, the Sikh tradition of voluntary service. Without government funding, they cleared water hyacinth and silt from the riverbed and built banks, bathing ghats and a road. When appeals to officials failed to stop sewage flowing in, he took the message to villagers. The Punjab government later identified 73 villages for ponds that treat sewage for irrigation, and the river began to fill.

The Kali Bein became a national example. President A P J Abdul Kalam praised it in 2004 and visited from 2006, and TIME listed Seechewal among its Heroes of the Environment in 2008. In 2015 the minister Uma Bharti called the Bein a Guru Asthan for the Ganga mission, and around 500 village representatives were sent to study the Seechewal model. In January 2017 he was named for the Padma Shri.

In May 2022 the Aam Aadmi Party nominated him to the Rajya Sabha, and he was sworn in that July. In 2024 he turned to the Buddha Nullah, a Sutlej tributary through Ludhiana that is also linked to Guru Nanak through Gurdwara Gaughat. After a first phase of planting and roads from February 2024, he cancelled a foreign trip and pitched a tent in Ludhiana in December 2024 to start a second phase against untreated sewage and dairy waste. In June 2026 Ludhiana civic officials said 7,500 tonnes of cow dung had been kept out of the nullah in 62 days.

The work has critics. In March 2025 local activists told Hindustan Times that the clean stretches he showed upstream of the city were fed by fresh water, calling his claims a PR stunt; Seechewal said his team was clearing a riverbed buried under dung. On the Kali Bein he told The Indian Express in 2025 that a few villages still discharge untreated water.

Why is Balbir Singh Seechewal called Eco Baba?

He revived the Kali Bein through volunteer kar sewa and has since led river clean-ups and tree planting across Punjab.

What is the Kali Bein and why does it matter to Sikhs?

It is a rivulet of roughly 160 km that flows through Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala districts to the Sutlej. Sikh tradition holds that Guru Nanak attained enlightenment on its banks.

What is the Seechewal model?

Villages collect sewage in ponds, treat it and reuse it for irrigation instead of letting it flow into rivers. The Indian Express reports that the Centre adopted it for Namami Gange.

Where is Balbir Singh Seechewal from?

He is from Seechewal village in Jalandhar district, Punjab, where his Nirmal Kutia is based.