Bhubaneswar: The Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) has issued closure notices to 17 erring industrial units in the state in the past four years (since 2015) for not adhering to environmental norms as specified by legislation and directions from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
A recent national-level data relating to the heavily polluting industries from the country (state pollution) as released by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change claim that 17 industries from the state which fall in the category of most polluting industries defied pollution norms to install Online Continuous Emission/Effluent Monitoring System (OCEMS) on their premises and were thus issued closure notice by the state pollution body.
According to the data which was later also submitted before the Lok Sabha August 3 claimed that Odisha is home to 125 such industries which are described as ‘heavily polluting’ which includes industries involved in- aluminum smelter, caustic soda, cement, copper smelter, distilleries, dyes and dye intermediates, fertiliser, integrated iron and steel, tanneries, pesticides, petrochemicals, drugs and pharmaceuticals, pulp and paper, oil refineries, sugar, thermal power plants and zinc smelter.
The ministry claims that out of the 125 such heavily polluting industries, 107 in Odisha installed the system as per the directions of the CPCB while 17 defied the orders, against whom notices were issued by the state body to close down. Status of one unit had not been mentioned in the report.
The CPCB had issued directions February 5, 2014 to all state pollution control boards (SPCBs)/pollution control committees (PCCs) under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 to direct the 17 categories of highly polluting industries (identified by CPCB) to install OCEMS by March 31, 2015 followed by directions under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to individual industries. Industries were mandated to install OCEMS by the SPCBs and CPCB.
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