Make public info on deep-sea industrial waste water pipeline project: Gujarat govt told

Industrial waste water discharge from Vapi

By A Representative
Ahmedabad-based environmental NGO Paryavaran Mitra has asked the Gujarat government to make public any information available on the project to lay down deep-sea discharge pipelines across Gujarat to ensure that the treated industrial water from the units in clusters between Veraval in Saurashtra and Vapi in South Gujarat is discharged into the Arabian Sea.
In a letter to the state environment secretary, NGO director Mahesh Pandya said, while an announcement for deep-sea pipelines across Gujarat was made by chief minister Vijay Rupani in December 2018, and deputy chief minister Nitin Patel even during the recent budget session the decision to allocate Rs 2,275 crore for the project, of which Rs 500 crore would be spent this financial year (2019-20), no details are available with anyone about it.
Pandya said, in reply to a Right to Information (RTI) plea, he has been told by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), to which his RTI application was transferred by the state environment department, that they don’t have any information regarding feasibility study, or Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report, or even a government resolution on the project.
“I request you to put in public domain necessary information on the project so that concerned citizens could react on it and submit their views”, the letter insisted.

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