Ganga cleaning: Supreme Court pulls up Centre, state pollution control boards for not taking action against polluting industries

The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up Centre and state pollution control boards for not taking action against polluting industries functioning on the banks of River Ganga.

The court told the pollution control boards, "Yours is a story of complete failure, and asked National Green Tribunal to monitor and take action against all polluting industrial units on banks of river Ganga.

Earlier, being unhappy over the Centre's failure to present its vision for cleaning the Ganga river, the Supreme Court on October 16 had slammed the government and said if the authorities at various level have been stalling the project because of corruption and heads must roll for this.

The court also slammed for its delay in taking steps to check the industries which have been discharging the effluents into the river and sought the CentralPollution Control Board (CPCB) to file an affidavit and posted the matter for October 29.

The court had also observed that if the discharge of industrial pollutants into the river was stopped, 30% of the Ganga would be clean. But pollution boards in the states the Ganga flows through were not stopping this, they said, because of deep-rooted corruption.

The Supreme Court is hearing a public interest litigation on the cleaning of the Ganga in 1985. Cleaning Ganga was not only BJP's election agenda but also prime ministerNarendra Modi, a Lok sabha member from Varanasi, based on the banks of the river, has pledged to clean the river. He also sought involvement of NRIs in the project during his trip to the US recently.