: Having failed to comply with the directions of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) to switch to green fuel, nearly 500 factories running on coal in the industrial city of Panipat were forced to shut operations from Saturday.
These industries, including dyeing units, export houses and mink and polar blanket units, failed to shift to piped natural gas (PNG), CNG, LPG, biogas, propane, butane or biomass fuels generated from crop waste and wooden blocks in the given deadline that expired on September 30.
As per the owners of these units, the move will leave around 1.20 lakh employees and labourers jobless. This will also have long lasting impact on other industries.
Bhim Singh Rana, president of Panipat dyers’ association, told HT that in the first phase, around 500 factories have shut their production from October 1 as they were left with no other option because of the hefty penalty of ₹ 1 crore and jail term of up to 5 years announced by CAQM if anybody was caught running industries on coal.
“The closure of dyeing units will affect around 20,000 units which were based on raw material being prepared by the dyeing units,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}“The closure of dyeing units will affect around 20,000 units which were based on raw material being prepared by the dyeing units,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}On why the industrialists were reluctant to shift to the green fuel, he said that the PNG is costlier than coal and also the equipment used for the shift were also not available as per requirement.
“We had urged the government to give at least two years’ time as we faced losses due to Covid-19 pandemic and then Russia and Ukraine war resulted in an increase in the price of raw materials,” he said, adding that the deadline was not extended and they had to shut their factories.
He said that they have taken up the issue with the state government on several occasions but failed to get any positive response. Members of the industrial association said that they were holding meetings with all the affected industries located in the NCR so that they could take up this issue with the higher authorities.
Even as the officials of the state pollution control board have launched a special drive to ensure the compliance of norms under which coal fired units located under the National Capital Region (NCR) were told to shift to PNG or face closure, the officials said that the process of shifting to PNG started since the order was issued three months ago.
As per the CAQM order issued across NCR on June 23, for the industries located in the NCR region, the approved fuels shall come into force from October 1 for areas where PNG infrastructure and supply is already available and from January 1, 2023 for other areas where the PNG supply is still not available.
“We have conducted a field survey on Saturday and not even a single industry without PNG connection was found operational,” said Kanwaljit Singh, regional officer of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board.
He said that they have also given the alternative of the biomass fuel to the owners of industrial units as this will also help to deal with the issue of stubble burning in the state.