Delhi industrial hubs toxic: Report

Eighty-five per cent of big industrial clusters in India — including six in and around Delhi — are health hazards, as pollution levels have made air, water and land quality here unfit for human habitation, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Dec 25, 2009, 01:20:05 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Eighty-five per cent of big industrial clusters in India — including six in and around Delhi — are health hazards, as pollution levels have made air, water and land quality here unfit for human habitation.

This is what the Central Pollution Control Board found when it assessed 88 industrial areas. Pollution levels at 75 of these areas are “critical” — which on the Comprehensive Environment Pollution Index is between 60 and 80, with zero being the least and 100 the most.

“Toxic levels were found to be very high and bad for human health,” said Board chairperson S.P. Gautam. “Ankleshwar in Gujarat is the most polluted because of its poor infrastructure to control pollutants.” Vapi, also in Gujarat, is second.

The NCR is also a major contributor to industrial pollution.

Ghaziabad in UP is third with many unauthorised industries. “In early 2000, when unauthorised industries were closed in Delhi on court orders, most of them shifted to Ghaziabad, resulting in high pollution levels there,” said a Board official.

Delhi’s top industrial areas Anand Parvat, Naraina, Okhla and Wazirpur come collectively at number 11 thanks to high air pollution levels and the toxins they release into the Najafgarh drain that flows out to the Yamuna. Noida is ranked 12.

Digboi in Assam is the least polluted with a score of 44.55.

“No new industries should be allowed in these industrial clusters. It is a tough decision states need to take,” Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said. “We (the Centre) will provide financial help in next year’s budget for this clean-up job.”

The report — based on pollution data from 2007 to ’09 — shows high levels of common toxins such as lead, iron and copper and chemicals such as benzene and mercury — all of which are carcinogenic.

Ramesh said the Public Health Foundation of India would study the impact of such pollution levels on people’s health, an aspect the Board’s report does not quantify.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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