Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Will enforcement help curb pollution?

For an industrial city like Coimbatore that has a wide range of units, will law ensure adherence to pollution control norms, ask V.S. Palaniappan and M. Soundariya Preetha

POLLUTION control efforts and initiatives always had a conflict of interests thus leading to pressure on industrial environment. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has been enforcing a number of legislations to ensure pollution-free atmosphere in Coimbatore and its peripheral areas.

The enforcement of these Acts focus on foundries, engineering, textile processing, textile spinning and electroplating units.

The effort to prevent pollution begins at the stage of setting up an industrial unit since establishment itself requires consent from the TNPCB. The units are largely classified as "red" (highly polluting), "orange" (less polluting) or "green" (nil polluting).

To adhere to these norms, these units adopt technologies leading to cleaner environment. Units that fail to adhere to the prescribed standards would be issued show cause notices and even ordered to close the unit.

The foundries, textile processing and electroplating units here come under the "red category" and spinning and some of the engineering units under "orange category."

The type of pollution that these units should control is air and noise (foundries), water (textile dyeing and electroplating units) and air (spinning units). For water pollution control, the units mainly go in for effluent treatment facilities and for air pollution they adopt measures such as installation of scrubbers. On noise pollution, the units are asked to maintain the noise level on the industry premises below 75 decibels.

The local office of the Board surveys the units and in case of non-adherence it issues show cause notice, providing them 15 days time to take remedial action. During the last six months, the Coimbatore office issued notices to 33 units though there had been no instance of closure of units.

In order to ensure that the units install the required facilities while commissioning the plant itself, the board issues "establishment consent." Once established, the second-tier check comes in the form of "Operation Consent" that the TNPCB issues.

Nearly 1,350 units operate now after obtaining the consent order of the Coimbatore office of the board.

However, consumer organisations and environmental activists had suggested that a district-level joint panels be constituted comprising representatives from all the organisations and bodies related to the establishment and operation of an industry.

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