E-Paper
Ganga pollution: 39 tanneries shut
IN THE most comprehensive campaign ever launched, the district administration on Tuesday shut down 39 tanneries for not following the set standards to check discharge of toxic affluents in the Ganga.The administration sealed these tanning units following an order passed by the Allahabad High Court on a writ filed by one Har Chetan Brahmchari Maharaj. The court, in the order passed on May 24, had taken serious view of tannery affluents being the major contributory to ill-health of the river.
IN THE most comprehensive campaign ever launched, the district administration on Tuesday shut down 39 tanneries for not following the set standards to check discharge of toxic affluents in the Ganga.
The administration sealed these tanning units following an order passed by the Allahabad High Court on a writ filed by one Har Chetan Brahmchari Maharaj. The court, in the order passed on May 24, had taken serious view of tannery affluents being the major contributory to ill-health of the river.
In compliance to the order, the State Pollution Control Board rolled out the process to seal the tanning units in and around Jajmau. To make the action go unhindered, the administration made eleaborate security arrangements.
Additional City Magistrates and Deputy SPs accompanied Pollution Board teams with heavy police contingent to meet any eventuality.
The process started in the morning and continued till late evening in a peaceful way. Regional officer of the Pollution Board, Kuldeep Mishra, said in the next phase the glue factories, that uses animal waste, will be sealed. Before executing the court order, the District Magistrate, Anurag Shrivastava, had taken two weeks to ascertain genuine defaulting tanneries.
He had constituted four teams, comprising officials of six departments, to survey all the tanneries to ascertain which ones had chrome recovery plants that check metal from reaching the river. A total 402 tanneries were surveyed by the team and 205 were classified as chrome-based while rest 197 were non-chrome-based units.
The survey concluded that 180 big tanneries conformed with standard norms and 39 units had not made arrangements for the chrome recovery plants.
All these units as a result, faced clsoure on Tuesday with teams of Pollutional Control Board, Sick Industries Centre, Kanpur Municipal Corporation, Jal Nigam officials, put up seals and notices.
ADM (city) Abrar Ahmed who was burning midnight oil for long for swift action, said the affected tannery owners cooperated with the teams everywhere and the process to seal units ended peacefully.
