NGT to resume hearing on Ganga pollution, Kanpur tanneries issue

On Monday, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) will resume its hearing on the Kanpur tanneries issue, as part of the Ganga pollution case, for the first time since the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Uttar Pradesh indicated that it may shift the critically polluting tanneries out of Kanpur. The 400 tanneries in Jajmau cluster of Kanpur are a major sore point in the Ganga cleaning project as they discharge heavy metals. Several of these tanneries operate illegally.

The hearing resumes in the backdrop of a meeting between the NGT chairperson justice Swatanter Kumar and top officials of Uttar Pradesh government, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) last week.

On March 30, the chairperson had directed that a meeting be held after the UP government informed the Tribunal about its willingness to discuss the scenario of shifting tanneries outside Kanpur. This is contrary to the stand of the previous government, under Samajwadi Party, which had submitted through former advocate general Vijay Bahadur Singh that paucity of land and dependence of lakhs on the tannery cluster made shifting difficult.

“There will be more discussions before anything is submitted to the court,” said an official from the UP government.