Published on Down To Earth (http://www.downtoearth.org.in Supreme Court asks NGT to monitor industrial units polluting GangaAuthor(s): Issue Date: 2014-10-29 Apex court had recently asked government to explain why Central Pollution Control Board has no chairperson for the past six months The Supreme Court on Wednesday slammed the Centre and state pollution control boards for not taking action against industries that are functioning on the banks of River Ganga and polluting it. This has come days after the apex court had rebuked the Centre over its failure to present its vision on cleaning Ganga. “Yours is a story of complete failure, frustration and disaster,” the apex court told the boards, according to a PTI report published in The Hindu. Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, however, said at a press conference that the Central Pollution Control Board has listed 764 such polluting industries which have been given notice to install sensors at affluent discharge points by March 31 next year. The apex court which had recently rapped the government [2] for its inaction and lack of seriousness has now asked the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to monitor all polluting industrial units on the banks of river Ganga. The court had also that the Central Pollution Control Board has been without a head or a chairman for the past six months. Read more: Can we save Ganga? [3] |
October 30, 2014 at 9:17 am
Thank you for sharing this important set of documents.
It is impressive to see the systematic efforts of Down to Earth.
I hope now that the analysis of the problem is available, we will launch the corrective
I only wish that the sources of the problem could have been broken into the following levels, to facilitate interventions at different levels- (i) attitudes and beliefs of the general population(eg. achieving moksha by dying/being cremated on the shores of Ganga); (ii0 religious piety of the population that both facilitates and pollutes the river( eg.puja etc); (iii) economic factors of industrialisation; (iv) availability of technology to address the pollution issues;(v) availability of models to address the issue; (vi) technical professionals to undertake the interventions; (vii) availability of funds; (viii) corruption in the system that facilitates or allows the polluters to get away without punishment; (ix) administrative structures and processes in place to continuously to monitor the situation and (x) the political will. Such an analysis would lead to action at different levels and expect results over different time periods.All problems/barriers can not be addressed at the same time, with the same measures and with the same time frame measures.
murthy