Hyderabad: PCB says acting sternly, making polluters pay

Jeedimetla: At least around 500industriesincluding small factories which are not registered with the Telangana State Pollution Control board are emitting excess effluents and causing immense damage to environment.

Out of the 6,000 industries functioning in Hyderabad and city outskirts, at least 500 of them are unregistered pharmaceutical and drug manufacturing industries which releasing hazardous effluents, harming the environment. A few of them are registered for one purpose but are functioning for a different purpose. According to the Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation Ltd (TSIIC), there are 1,200 polluting industries within ORR.

"As many as 45 industries were slapped with notices for violating the pollution norms in Jeedimetla and 31 licences of industries were revoked in January. In February till now, licences of five industries are revoked. and TSPCB has slapped closure notices on 17 industries in January and one in February. This process of closing the industries for violation of norms and slapping the factories with fines turned out to be a routine process as the industries are committing the same violations even after several warnings. As such TSPCB is going to act sternly against such companies and serving closure notices," said P Nagesh, Senior Environmental Engineer, PCB.

The Pollution Control Board conducts inspections once in three months. Most of the pharma industries in Hyderabad are treating their waste in effluent treatment plants (ETPs). Industries of red, green, orange categories number around 1,800 and rest are small-scale industries. A maximum of fire accidents and gas leakages, water contamination, soil erosion and air pollution take place in small-scale units as they flout safety norms and do not install necessary equipment.

Pharma and chemical industries located in urban areas such as Jeedimetla, Sanath Nagar, Bachupally, Patancheruv, Balanagar, Nacharam, Charlapally and Uppal are causing trouble to the residential colonies. There have been hundreds of complaints and pleas from Sanathnagar to shift the polluting industries. But, there is no action has been taken and the residents are being forced to struggle with the gas leakages and fire accidents often in the area. There would be at least 2 to 3 fire accidents every month in Sanathnagar, says K Uma Maheswari, living for 10 years in Sanathnagar. Around 260 pharma and chemical industries are established on the city outskirts.Kajipally (40 industries), Gadapotharam (60 industries) and Bonthapally (57 industries) are the other areas worst affected by drug industries.