Hindustan Times: Mumbai: Friday, 28 April 2023.
More than a year after the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) was rapped for effluent pollution in creeks and fields near their township in Tarapur, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) is yet to finalise an action plan to remediate environment and public health in the affected villages, an RTI has revealed.
The January 2022 National Green Tribunal (NGT) judgement, in which 103 industries were fined to the tune of ₹260 crore, mandated an action plan to remediate environment and public health in the affected villages.
MIDC Tarapur in Palghar district in 2018 was ranked as the country’s most polluted out of 88 industrial clusters, as per the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI). It is spread across 15 villages, where the population is largely indigenous and involved in artisan fishing, in addition to agriculture and salt making.
The petitioner in the matter, the Akhil Bhartiya Mangela Samaj Parishad (ABMSP), had first moved the NGT in 2016 with the grievance that water resources, which provides a livelihood to locals, were being subjected to “grave degradation” at the hands of respondents through the discharge of untreated industrial effluents.
However, in response to the RTI query by Narendra Naik, spokesperson, ABMSP, seeking to know what steps have been taken in line with the NGT judgement, the MPCB wrote, “The action plan has not yet been finalised, thus information is nil.”
As per the NGT order, the plan for remediation was to be in place by April 2022 and was to be executed by April 2023. The response also revealed that the MPCB has collected just over ₹93 crore in compensation from the penalised industries as of March 2023, but no information was given as to how much of this corpus has been utilised for improving environmental and public health conditions.
In January 2022, the NGT had instructed that “the amount of compensation shall be utilised for remediation/restoration of environment and healthcare activities of the people in the area under guidance and supervision of a committee comprising CPCB, MPCB, a senior medical expert nominated by secretary, medical and health department of the Government of Maharashtra, National Institute of Oceanography and collector, Palghar.”
More than a year after the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) was rapped for effluent pollution in creeks and fields near their township in Tarapur, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) is yet to finalise an action plan to remediate environment and public health in the affected villages, an RTI has revealed.
The January 2022 National Green Tribunal (NGT) judgement, in which 103 industries were fined to the tune of ₹260 crore, mandated an action plan to remediate environment and public health in the affected villages.
MIDC Tarapur in Palghar district in 2018 was ranked as the country’s most polluted out of 88 industrial clusters, as per the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI). It is spread across 15 villages, where the population is largely indigenous and involved in artisan fishing, in addition to agriculture and salt making.
The petitioner in the matter, the Akhil Bhartiya Mangela Samaj Parishad (ABMSP), had first moved the NGT in 2016 with the grievance that water resources, which provides a livelihood to locals, were being subjected to “grave degradation” at the hands of respondents through the discharge of untreated industrial effluents.
However, in response to the RTI query by Narendra Naik, spokesperson, ABMSP, seeking to know what steps have been taken in line with the NGT judgement, the MPCB wrote, “The action plan has not yet been finalised, thus information is nil.”
As per the NGT order, the plan for remediation was to be in place by April 2022 and was to be executed by April 2023. The response also revealed that the MPCB has collected just over ₹93 crore in compensation from the penalised industries as of March 2023, but no information was given as to how much of this corpus has been utilised for improving environmental and public health conditions.
In January 2022, the NGT had instructed that “the amount of compensation shall be utilised for remediation/restoration of environment and healthcare activities of the people in the area under guidance and supervision of a committee comprising CPCB, MPCB, a senior medical expert nominated by secretary, medical and health department of the Government of Maharashtra, National Institute of Oceanography and collector, Palghar.”
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