Gujarat CM to "discuss" lifting ban on investment in most polluted clusters with industrial associations

Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani

Counterview Desk
A senior Gujarat-based environmentalist has alleged that the state government and Government of India have begun a fresh move to lift the moratorium imposed Vapi, Ankleshwar and Vatva, which were characterized in 2010 some of the most polluted industrial clusters of India.
Rohit Prajapati of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), Vadodara, says that a strategy on how to lift the ban will be discussed by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani with the industrial associations of these clusters at Ankleshwar on November 26, 2016.
“The government lackadaisical attitude towards pollution control is evident”, says Prajapati, adding, “There is no talk of environmental protection and pollution control on agenda and to consult the affected people of the area.”
Calling the move “unfortunate”, Prajapati says, “Both at the state and national level, government authorities are busy to cite the manipulated figures of the CEPI (Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index) so that, if not on ground, at least on paper they can show that there is substantial improvement in CEPI.”
Noting that it is an effort to “justify their decision to lift the moratorium from Vapi, Ankleshwar and Vatva”, he says, “In spite of severe pollution in these clusters, the government has no time to discuss with the affected people and the groups working in the area on environmental protection.”
Prajapati recalls, “The consistent follow up by the pollution-affected people, people’s organisations and NGOs regarding the increasing pollution levels in the industrial areas of India forced the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Boards in 1989 to initiate the process of indexing the critically polluted areas.”
“At that time 24 industrial areas, including Vapi, Ankleshwar, Ludhiana, were declared ‘critically polluted’,”, he says, adding, “In 2009 the CPCB and Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, in consistence with the demands of the people’s organisations working on environmental issues decided to use a new method of ‘indexing the pollution levels’ of these areas, which is now known as Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI).”
CEPI includes air, water, land pollution and health risks to the people living in the area, he says, though regretting, the demand to include workers' health, productivity of land and quality of food/ agriculture produce in the index was rejected.
“In December 2009 the CEPI of 88 polluted industrial clusters was measured; it was then that the CPCB and the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) of the Government of India declared 43 of those as ‘critically polluted clusters’ and another 32 industrial areas as ‘severely polluted clusters’.”
“Following the study the MoEF, on January 13, 2010, issued a moratorium on the 43 critically polluted areas”, says Prajapati, adding, “Similar reports were prepared by CPCB in 2011 and 2013 but these reports were completely ignored by the past government and the Modi government.”
“Today”, he says, “There is some improvement but not up to the mark so that government can take the decision to lift the moratorium. Instead if we read the Control Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Zonal Office (West), Vadodara, Gujarat of July 2016 report the ‘ECP Industrial Cluster of Vadodara’ has also become critically polluted cluster.”

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

UP tribal woman human rights defender Sokalo released on bail

By A Representative After almost five months in jail, Adivasi human rights defender and forest worker Sokalo Gond has been finally released on bail.Despite being granted bail on October 4, technical and procedural issues kept Sokalo behind bars until November 1. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), which are backing Sokalo, called it a "major victory." Sokalo's release follows the earlier releases of Kismatiya and Sukhdev Gond in September. "All three forest workers and human rights defenders were illegally incarcerated under false charges, in what is the State's way of punishing those who are active in their fight for the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006)", said a CJP statement.

Would breaking idols, burning books annihilate caste? Recalling a 1972 Dalit protest

By Rajiv Shah A few days ago, I received an email alert from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in Gujarat for the Dalit cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935, Babasaheb Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti . In 1972, we broke the idol of Krishna , whom we regarded as the creator of the varna (caste) system.”

May the Earth Be Auspicious: Vedic ecology and contemporary crisis in Ashok Vajpeyi’s poetry

By Ravi Ranjan* Ashok Vajpeyi, born in 1941, occupies a singular position in contemporary Hindi poetry as a poet whose work quietly but decisively reorients modern literary consciousness toward ethical, ecological, and civilizational questions. Across more than six decades of writing, Vajpeyi has forged a poetic idiom marked by restraint, philosophical attentiveness, and moral seriousness, resisting both rhetorical excess and ideological simplification.

Search This Blog