Hindustan Times: Pune: Tuesday, December 26, 2017.
The
Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has shut down as many as 49
factories, mostly chemical and pharmaceutical units, in Pune during the past
two years for large-scale violation of anti-pollution laws and causing damage
to the environment.
The factories
found to be discharging pollutants into the Mula-Mutha river streams were
investigated by the MPCB and have been found to have violated the Water
(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and the Air (Prevention and
Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
Information
regarding the factory closure was revealed by MPCB under the Right to
Information (RTI) Act filed by the Watchdog Foundation based in Mumbai.
Earlier, speaking to Hindustan Times, P Anbalagan, member secretary of MPCB
said, “We asked the factories to shut down as a last resort after they
repeatedly failed to comply with environmental laws. We were forced to take
this action on the basis of the severity of the violations.”
Central
Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Maharashtra has the maximum number of polluted
river stretches in the country - 49 of 315. Around 3,000 million litres of
untreated sewage and industrial effluents regularly flow into the rivers,
lakes, and other water bodies of the state.
The ministry
of environment, forests and climate change (MoEFCC) in its report stated that
while Maharashtra generates 13% of the country’s sewage, about 8,143 million
litres a day (MLD), it has facilities to treat only 5,160.36 million litres of
sewage on a daily basis.
Trustee of
Watchdog Foundation Godfrey Pimenta, who has been spearheading the drive, said
that the situation is alarming as the environmental pollution caused by
factories is at an all-time high. “Our RTI information reveals that most of the
factories in Pune were found polluting the Mula-Mutha rivers which led to their
closure,” Pimenta told Hindustan Times over phone.
Factories and
industrial units that failed to install or effectively use individual effluent
treatment plants (ETP) and common effluent treatment plants (CETP), or found to
directly discharge effluents in to water bodies without following environmental
norms, are the ones against whom the action has been taken.
Besides,
closure directions were issued as a result of orders passed by the Supreme
Court and the National Green Tribunal. The MPCB policy mandates that if during
sample checking of discharges of pollutants from the plants, if the levels
exceed the safe standards by 70%, then the environment policy clearly mandates
shutting down the industries without any hearing.
PCMC
region has most offenders
MPCB has been
accused by environmentalists for being ineffective in lacking teeth and
necessary administrative will against the polluters.
The MPCB has
issued more than 5,000 show cause notices to erring factories between 2011 and
2017.
Most of the
manufacturing units ranging from automobiles, tyres, textiles, chemicals and
steel industries are located in PCMC region which has the most offenders.
Out of the
744 million litres per day (MLD) of waste generated by Pune through sewage and
other means, 177 MLD of waste is entering the rivers without treatment.
MPCB report
published in Feb 2017 says that Pune region has maximum number of river
stretches where the water quality index is either ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’
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