TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: The PWD has agreed to utilise industrial slag lying at various industrial estates to construct roads on a pilot basis. In fact the government will generate revenues from this initiative by charging Rs 200 per metric tonne from industries generating the slag.
Over nine lakh metric tonnes of slag is generated by steel and its allied industries in Goa, which if channelised for road construction could cut costs considerably.
Three-member core committees, formed for the industrial estates of Sanguem, Cuncolim, Marcaim and Kundaim, where 17 slag-generating steel and allied industries are operating, have scientifically tested that the slag is non-toxic. Though the slag is not hazardous, industries, dump it at vacant plots thus creating space problem. PWD will use the slag to construct roads as per National Education for Environment and Research (NEERI) guidelines followed across the country, GSPCB chairman Jose Manual Noronha told Herald.
“The industrial units will have to pay the government for purchasing their slag,” GSPCB Chairman Noronha said.
The GSPCB recently during a site inspection at Kundaim industrial estate observed that large quantity of slag stacked there, is flowing into the nearby nullah. Directions have been issued to steel industries such as West Coast Ingots Pvt Ltd, Mohit Steel Industries Pvt Ltd and Shivan Ispat Pvt Ltd to construct a retaining wall at the site, thereby preventing the slag from flowing into nullah.
