Worried hoteliers seek CM’s intervention

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, August 30

Hoteliers are worried over the order of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) directing for installation of a sewage treatment plant (STP) in hotels with more than 20 rooms. They met Chief Minister Harish Rawat under the banner of the Uttarakhand Hotel and Restaurant Association last evening and sought his intervention in the matter.

Uttarakhand Hotel and Restaurant Association president Sandeep Sahni, who led the delegation, presented a memorandum in this regard to the Chief Minister stating that due to a misrepresentation by the Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board, the NGT had issued order on July 19 that hotels having more than 20 rooms should instal STPs.

Sahni said the NGT order was on based on a misrepresentation of facts by the pollution control board and other departments that all hotels are disposing of sewage directly into the Ganga and its tributaries. This submission was false as the details given by the pollution control board stated that hotels were connected with the sewerage line of the Jal Sansthan, which in most places is connected with STPs.

Installation of STPs at every hotel would be detrimental to the environment and unfeasible in the long run. Experts at a meeting of the empowered steering committee of the NGBRA on May 5, 2015, stated that “the construction of STPs in all towns will be unduly expensive, impractical and will not meet the requisite requirement as there will be unnecessary digging and destruction of hills. It will not be useful to install STPs everywhere and these should be constructed where the load of sewage is fully justified”.

“Even if STPs are set up in hotels having occupancy for not more than four months in a year, part of domestic and industrial waste being carried through sewer lines is not treated. This defeats the purpose of preventing pollution in the Ganga. Hence the only solution to prevent pollution in the Ganga is that the state government should set up STPs, connect these to sewer lines of the Jal sansthan under prescribed norms of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB),” added Sahni.

The members of the association requested the state government and the pollution control board to formulate a policy in this regard.

Sahni said the pollution control board was charging retrospective fees from the industry, which is unjust and irrational. He requested the Chief Minister to direct the board to make a factual representation before the NGT.