Gujarat: Easing environmental norms for industries worries green crusaders

The SOPs announced by the Gujarat government for industries have got environmentalists in the state concerned. They believe the relaxations given to industries will wipe out the gains made in pollution control.

Rohit Prajapati, who has fought long legal battles to get industries to implement pollution norms in the state, said that the provision to allow industries that have Environment Clearance (EC) for a project to skip seeking Consent to Establish (CTE), is very dangerous.

"The EC is given on certain conditions that a unit needs to fulfill. When the units seek a CTE, they have to give details about how they will ensure that the conditions laid down in the EC are followed. Now, with the state doing away with the CTE, it would be difficult to ascertain if the conditions of EC are fulfilled or not,"said Prajapati.

He further said that the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) faces staff shortage on a regular basis. "When you reduce the time period from 45 days to 30 days to give certain approvals, the motive is to expedite the process of approval. But what one forgets is that the need for a longer time period for approval is needed because the GPCB does not have enough staff even now to carry out all the checks that needs to be done. Now, with reduced days, you can imagine the quality of checks," said Prajapati.

He, however, said the biggest concern was the deep sea discharge of waste being proposed. "The problem with deep sea discharge is how will one know if the waste being dumped is actually being treated before being dumped. At present, even when the rules mandate it, industries dump untreated waste in pipelines and other places. So, if this is to be dumped in the deep sea, who will monitor," said Prajapati. He said deep sea discharge of waste, if allowed, should only be permitted for units that have consistently for three years shown that they treat waste as per the set norms.

He also added that the move to use the funds with GPCB for environment protection and pollution reduction is ridiculous because ideally the GPCB should make the polluters pay.

"The GPCB has been unable to make most of the polluters pay. So now it is relying on the funds it has collected from some of the industries for 'environment conservation' when in fact it should be using the funds collected from the respective units to counter pollution effects in the respective areas," he said.

MAIN CONCERNS

• Environmentalists are afraid that reducing the time period to approve a project will affect quality checks instead of expediting the process.
   
• The other concern is the deep sea discharge of industrial waste. Green activists are worried it will become difficult to ascertain if the waste disposed into the sea has been treated or not.