Ghaziabad: Industrial unit faces ₹25 lakh penalty for violating emission norms

The regional office of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) has recommended a penalty of ₹25 lakh against an industrial unit in Sahibabad for failing to adhere to norms for reducing pollution-causing emissions

The regional office of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) has recommended a penalty of ₹25 lakh against an industrial unit in Sahibabad for failing to adhere to norms for reducing pollution-causing emissions.

Officials said that the non-complying unit in Sahibabad was tracked by a night patrolling team on Friday. (HT Archive)

Officials said that the non-complying unit in Sahibabad was tracked by a night patrolling team on Friday.

“We checked the same unit nearly two months ago and issued a show cause notice. On Friday night, our patrolling team again found the unit erring as emissions were higher than the standard limits. As the violation has taken place in the period when the Graded Response Action Plan (Grap) is in place, we have recommended a hefty penalty of ₹25 lakh against the unit. The recommendation has been sent to the headquarters,” said Utsav Sharma, regional officer of UPPCB.

“This is the first instance of an industrial unit which was found non-complying with emission norms during the Grap period in the district this year,” said Sharma.

The officials also said that the deadline of road repair works ended on October 30 and they will now start levying fines against the Ghaziabad municipal corporation.

“We will now start penalising the Ghaziabad municipal corporation as many roads are still under construction/repairs even though the deadline set by the state government ended on October 30,” Sharma added.

The officials said that the potholed roads are a major source of PM10 pollutants. They further said that a similar action may be initiated in connection with the surface relaying work of the CISF Road in Indirapuram which is pending for almost a year now and is a major source of dust pollution.

According to data of the municipal corporation, the civic body is taking up pothole repair works over about 165km of roads and completed about 121km till October 28. The records also indicate that about 77km of road stretches were proposed for restoration while only 22km got completed till October 28.

The corporation officials said that they completed almost 90% of the patch work and 86% of road restoration work before the monsoon, but prolonged spell of rains deteriorated the road conditions.

“We have completed about 90% of the road repair/patch works as of today. It is likely to get complete in another day or two. Only the resurfacing works are pending, which will also be completed soon,” said NK Chaudhary, chief engineer of the corporation.

According to the Central Pollution Control Board, the air quality of Ghaziabad on Saturday remained under the ‘poor’ category, with an air quality index (AQI) value of 297 as gainst 284 a day earlier.

The UPPCB has implemented Grap in NCR cities of the state on directions of the CPCB.