Extending the pollution horizon
The Haryana government has adopted a list of 43 industries as highly polluting, rejecting the Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) list of 17 types of heavily polluting industries, circulated 2 years ago, as inadequate. Pointing out that the CPCB list allows many other categories of intensively polluting industries in Haryana -- like stone crushers and dyeing units -- to go scot free, the state government has seen fit to come up with its own list.
Till now, some of these industries were not required to get an environmental clearance by the state pollution control board. The CPCB list did not even include industries like the 5,800 dyeing units in Panipat in its list of 17. A report by the Haryana Pollution Control Board in February revealed that the effluents from these units have made the nearby groundwater unfit for human consumption.
The state government list will include industries manufacturing caustic soda, cotton textile dyeing, foundries, the paints and varnish, and food processing industries. The state is under severe pressure to clean up its industries following reports of the air pollution caused by stone crushers at Panchkula and the groundwater pollution caused by dyeing units in Panipat.