Owners shut steel mills for five days over PPCB notices

On the call of All India Steel Re-rollers Association and Small Scale Re-rollers Association, hundreds of re-rolling mill owners of Asia’s biggest steel town Mandi Gobindgarh have shut their units for five days in protest against the closure orders being issued by the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) to industries using coal as a fuel instead of piped natural gas (PNG).

In a memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister through the Deputy Commissioner, the associations have appealed for saving the over 100-year-old steel industry of the state. The industry was contributing to the state revenue and providing employment to more than 25,000 people. Association representatives asked the CM to arrange their meeting with PPCB officials.

Addressing mediapersons, Vinod Vashist, national president of All India Steel Re-rollers Association, and Rajiv Sood, president, Small Scale Steel Re-rollers Association, said PNG supplying companies filed a petition in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) alleging that industries using coal as fuel in Mandi Gobindgarh were increasing the pollution level of the area.

They said the Punjab Government and the PPCB were the main respondents and they did not protect the interests of re-rolling mills. They said the associations had now moved the tribunal over the issue.

They said when PNG pipelines were laid, the owners of 122 re-rolling units had spent crores on installing gas machinery.

Over a period of time, companies started increasing the price of PNG, forcing the steel mills in Punjab to return to the use of coal, so as to compete with the states where fossil fuel was still being used.