TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Around a fortnight after Herald exposed how industrial slag generated by the steel units have found its way in private properties outside the Cuncolim Industrial Estate, Goa State Pollution Control Board’s investigations have identified four units responsible for dumping the slag outside the Industrial estate.
GSPCB notices have gone to the four industrial units under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, directing them to stop the disposal of the industrial waste outside their premises. The four units have been further directed to ensure that the industrial slag that has been dumped outside the premises of the four units is removed with a period of 15 days and disposed off within the industrial premises in terms of the renewed consent to operate.
All the four units have been further directed to submit a compliance report to the GSPCB office within a period of 15 days. The units have been further asked to show cause why action under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 should not be initiated against them for operating the units in a manner that that amounted to violation of the consent to operate order issued to them by the Board under the Water Act.
Says GSPCB Chairman Jose Manuel Norohna: “The industrial units have no right to dump the slag outside the jurisdiction of the Cuncolim Industrial Estate. Whether the slag is polluting or not is an entirely different matter. The erring units have clearly violated the consent to operate terms which envisages disposal of the industrial slag within their premises”.
Norohna has warned of stringent legal action against the erring units if they fail to comply with the directions within the stipulated times.
Tons of industrial slag has found its way outside the Cuncolim Industrial estate in land owned by private persons just meters away from the Cuncolim Municipal waste treatment plant. GSPCB officials in private admitted that it’s immaterial whether the land owners had consented to the slag dumping in their properties or not, saying that the slag cannot be transported and dumped in any property without the Board’s consent.
Local social activists led by Ronny Dias had demanded stringent action against the erring industrial units for dumping the slag outside the Industrial estate jurisdiction. Dias has slammed the Cuncolim Municipal Council for acting as a mere spectator when the slag has found its way in areas falling within the jurisdiction of the Civic body. “We could understand the Civic body’s helplessness if any illegality was taking place inside the Industrial Estate. But, it was indeed shocking and surprising that that the CMC turned a blind eye to the illegality when people staying close to the Industrial pollution are complaining of acute pollution”, Dias said, while making a humble plea to the Goa State Pollution Control Board Chairman Jose Manuel Norohna and Member Secretary Levinson Martins to take the matter to the logical conclusion.
Last week, Chairman of Industrial Development Corporation MLA Ganesh Gaonkar had visited the Cuncolim Industrial estate to take stock of the situation. Goankar had warned of action if the industrial units had resorted to illegal practices, but at the same time had assured the owners of the industrial units to work out a solution to the slag problem.
