Go tough against industrial estate units in Central Gujarat dumping effluents in village pond: Environmentalists

In major environmental disaster in Central Gujarat, the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) estate in Penoli has been found illegally filling up a huge village pond nearby with untreated effluents flowing out of the industrial units. Top environmentalists belonging to the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, Vadodara, Rohit Prajapati, Kantibhai Mistry, Ziya Pathan and Trupti Shah, backed by villagers under deputy sarpanch Salim Patel, have claimed that thanks to their intervention Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) officials were forced to visit Sanjali village, whose pond was polluted like this.
Patel discovered the way the pond was be3ing polluted on July 20, 2013, and reached up to officials of the Narmada Clean Tech Ltd, which is supposed to treat the effluents of the units in the GIDC estate, drawing their attention to the fact that industrial units in Penoli were dumping effluents in the pond. "The officials of the effluent treatment facility flatly refused, said the allegation was baseless. This made Patel to go to the space behind the facility with a video team. Only after the evidence clips were shown to officials did they agree that such a thing was actually happening", the statement said.
Thereafter, the statement said, Patel approached activists of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti, who met GPCB officials and complained against the way the pond was being sought to be polluted. "The GPCB officials reached there and saw how the effluents were flowing through the village from the Penoli side. Angry people complained that the GPCB was not taking enough care of what was happening with the environment around, and they had no faith in the organisation", the statement read.
Significantly, this is not for the first time that effleuents from the Penoli GIDC estate were being dumped in the village pond. "The villagers have complained about this several times over even the GPCB chairman and the member-secretary. However, the senior GPCB officials took no steps to stop the pollution of the pond. The villagers wanted the GPCB to put up monitoring stations at two different spots of the village, asking the authorities to take strict action against the industrial units responsible for dumping effluents in the pond", the statement said.
The environmentalists complained to the GPCB officials that, actually, the effluent treatment plant itself should bear the responsibility, as it was allowing the release of untreated effluents like this, which go right up Amraikhadi, polluting the the sea. "In the past, even GPCB officials have accepted that this was happening. However, so far no steps have been taken on polluting the village pond", the statement said, adding, "This is a clear violation the Gujarat High Court, which had asked the industrial units several years ago not to release untreated effluents like this towards Amraikhadi. It seems, the GPCB only take cosmetic steps to control pollution, which is quite unfortunate."

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Search This Blog