PPCB carries out inspection at Bathinda soap-making units

Tribune News Service

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Bathinda, February 5

A day after this newspaper carried a news report, highlighting that a number of soap manufacturing units were discharging untreated toxic industrial waste in the open at the New Focal Point here, officials of the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) have started carrying out inspections here.

From the past three days, PPCB officials have been visiting the area and knocking at almost every door of the industrial units, including soap manufacturing units and firms making transformers, among others. While talking to The Tribune, Harwinder Singh, superintending engineer, PPCB, Bathinda and Faridkot, said, “We have initiated action at the ground level and our officials have been conducting regular inspections at the site in the New Focal Point area.”

Singh said: “There are manufacturing units under the green category which do not cause pollution, but we would carry out inspections in these units as well to ensure that they are adhering to environmental norms. Then there are orange and red category units, which release pollutants, so we would lay more emphasis on such units.”

On being asked if orders for closure of pollutants generating manufacturing units were issued, he said, “There is a process that we need to follow. If manufacturing units under the green category were found to be violating the minor norms, then required action would be taken by the regional office in Bathinda, but if gross violations were found, we would prepare a report of the same and submit it to the head office of the PPCB in Patiala. Thereafter, the office will take a call on whether to shut down the unit or take any other necessary action. However, the violators will be issued show-cause notices to clarify their stand on the matter.”

Owing to frequent visits by the PCCB officials in the area, the industrialists have already become wary. One of the industrialists said, “The government must provide adequate infrastructure so that industrialists operating at micro and small scale do not have to dump the waste in the open. For instance, establishing an effluent treatment plant in the industrial area would have resolved the problems and saved us from notices and undue harassment.”