Hazardous waste emitting units told to register online

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, August 8

To check the deliberate dumping of hazardous and toxic waste by callous industrial units, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has launched a National Hazardous Waste Tracking System in all states.

A workshop was organised by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) at Baddi today to create awareness among the investors about the new system.

All hazardous waste emitting units have been directed to register on the online portal. The units will be required to file a daily report of waste generation while its monitoring would be undertaken by the SPCB.

This will also include trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste.

To track the generation, transportation, storage, recycling, utilisation and disposal of hazardous waste in the industrial clusters like Baddi, the SPCB also initiated the ground level validation of its national portal at Baddi.

There are about 850 industrial units in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial cluster which houses more than 89 per cent of the state’s industry.

The units in the Baddi and Barotiwala area supposed to send their effluents to the Common Effluent Treatment Plant for scientific disposal, while the units in the Nalagarh area do so on their own. In a bid to save the cost of scientific disposal, cases of effluents being dumped into the water bodies by the units often come to fore.

SPCB Member Secretary Anil Joshi apprised the investors that in order to facilitate the registration process and submission of information through these modules, a consultative meeting with the investors was organised at Baddi today.

Deepti Kapil, Scientist, Central Pollution Control Board, demonstrated the ground usage of the tracking system with the real time users to the investors.

The National Informatics Centre has put in place the process of making registration on the module while also developing the module for filing daily record and manifest.

The stakeholders were apprised of the various aspects of the Hazardous Waste Management Rules, 2016, and were directed to ensure safe and scientific disposal of the hazardous waste.

Praveen Gupta, Chief Engineer, SPCB, Baddi, was also present on the occasion. Investors from 150 companies, including Rajeev Aggarwal, president Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) Industries Association; Ashok Rana, president of Laghu Udyog Bharti; and Ashok Sharma from Shiwalik Solid waste Management, attended the meeting.

The deliberate dumping of hazardous waste was a cause of concern for the board as it polluted water bodies and water quality of the Sarsa river, which flows through Baddi has failed to improve for the last several years.