NCR can’t have any new industry

The Environment ministry has slapped a ban on setting up any new industry in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Noida till an environment impact assessment of the existing industries is done, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Mar 17, 2010, 23:27:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Environment ministry has slapped a ban on setting up any new industry in Delhi, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Noida till an environment impact assessment of the existing industries is done.

The four have been declared the 11th, 3rd, 18th and 12th most-polluted cities in the country, respectively.

“No new industries can be opened in these areas till the respective governments prepare a plan to manage pollution emanating from these zones,” said a ministry official.

The ban is part of the national moratorium imposed by Environment and Forest minister Jairam Ramesh on 88 most-polluted industrial clusters, having a large number of small scale industries.

The ban would be lifted in August, if the state governments submit plans to manage pollution in these industrial clusters, the official added.

Ghaziabad stood third most-polluted industrial zone in the country courtesy its poor management of air and water pollution in industrial zones such as Mohan Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Sahibabad, Pandav Nagar, Bulandhshahar Road and Amrit Nagar.

Based on comprehensive environmental pollution index of the Central Pollution Control Board, the ministry has categorized industrial areas of Anand Parvat, Nariana, Okhla and Wazirpur in Delhi as the 11th most polluted.

For Noida, which is 12th most polluted, no new industries would be allowed in its phase-I, II and III, Greater Noida Industrial Area, Surajpur Industrial and Chhaparaula.

At 18th rank, Faridabad will see a freeze on new industries in Sector 27, DLF phase-I and II, Hatin industrial area and industrial Model Township.

Last year the ministry had asked the Central Pollution Control Board and Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, to conduct a study of pollution from industries to identify critically polluted zones.

Pollution caused to water, air and noise was considered in the evaluation.

Ankleshwar and Vapi, both in Gujarat, were rated as first and second most polluted industrial clusters in India. The union minister had visited some of these areas to find the status of pollution management.

“Entire affluent system in Ankleshwar and Vapi had failed to tackle the load of the chemicals released,” Ramesh had said. The ministry considers the ban as a way to make industrial bodies more responsive to combating pollution.

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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