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According to a 2015 report, only about 40% of the polluting industries in the Ganga river basin area, covering Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, have installed the online monitoring system.

Varsha Singh

The Supreme Court passed an ultimatum in February that the various polluting industrial units across the country would have to be closed down if they do not have functional Primary Effluent Treatment Plants (PETPs) to stop the release of untreated waste in water bodies within three months after the notice.

A bench headed by Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and comprising Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and S.K. Kaul directed state Pollution Control Boards (PCBs) to issue a common notice through public advertisement to all industrial units to ensure that they have set up PETPs as mandated under the law.

“We direct concerned state pollution control boards to issue notice to all industrial units by way of a common advertisement requiring them to ensure that they have functional primary effluent treatment plants. On the expiry of three months’ notice period, the concerned state pollution control boards are mandated to carry out inspections at industrial units as to whether they have functional PETPs,” ruled the bench.

The court’s orders came against a public interest litigation filed in 2012 by non-profit Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti which sought directions to control industrial pollution. “Under no circumstances should any effluent in excess of norms allowed flow into any water body or seep into the soil,” the petition said. On January 15, the apex court had summoned the chief secretaries of at least 19 states, including Gujarat for not having filed the state governments’ responses on time. All the other states filed the reply apart from West Bengal. The Supreme Court on February 20 directed the Bengal environment secretary in court after the state failed to file its response to a notice on discharge of untreated industrial effluents into rivers and waterbodies. “Every other state has filed its reply. You chose not to despite the warning. We will not give you any more time. You must make your environment secretary present in court,” the bench told the state counsel.

The Supreme Court further directed that the state PCBs will ask the concerned electricity supply boards to disconnect power supply to the defaulting industrial units, which could resume their functions only after they made their PETPs functional. The top court said though the setting up of PETPs was required to be done by individual industrial units, the government bodies will have to establish Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) across the country within three years after acquiring land and completing other formalities. The states will have to submit reports with regard to setting up of CETPs to the concerned bench of the National Green Tribunal. The local civic authorities could formulate norms to levy cess from users if they face financial crunch in setting up and running the CETPs.

Cleaning Ganga

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued stringent directions for industries along the Ganga basin, which have not yet installed online pollution monitoring systems.  The CPCB has asked grossly polluting industries across 17 categories to install the systems at the earliest, failing which they will face closure. According to senior CPCB officials, errant industries will face action from March.

“The State Pollution Control Boards (SPCB) shall direct all units, Orange, Red, Green category to not continue its operations till the unit obtains valid consent to operate from state boards. SPCB shall place names of all defaulter units on its website and issue notices under Water and Air Act to seek and comply with stipulated standards,” the CPCB notice said.

In September 2014, Supreme Court Justices T.S. Thakur and R.Banumathi in a response to a government affidavit on cleaning the Ganga said that, “After seeing your action plan, it seems the Ganga will not be cleaned even after 200 years. You have to take steps to restore the Ganga to its pristine glory? Please try (to ensure) that the next generation is able to see the river in its original form. We don’t know whether we will see it or not.”

According to a 2015 report, only about 40% of the polluting industries in the Ganga river basin area, covering Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, have installed the online monitoring system. Only one-fifth of those with systems installed have started transmitting data to the central server. CPCB officials think that, once the system is installed, many factories may have to improve their production process to reduce the pollution load. That would cost money and could be the reason behind many of these industries’ reluctance.

Efforts to clean the Ganga began in 1985, with the launch of the Ganga Action Plan (GAP), a pet project of the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. A second phase began in 1993. In 2009, Ganga was declared a National River and the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) was set up. A year later came the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) with the aim of ensuring that no untreated domestic sewage or industrial effluent would flow into the river after 2020. Just three years from the deadline, a mere 700 MLD of the total of 2,700 MLD of wastewater entering the Ganga undergoes prior treatment. In 2014, the NDA government also launched the Namami Gange project, initially with an annual budget of `2,037 crore which was later increased to a whopping `20,000 crore over five years till 2019. It is being implemented through State Project Monitoring Groups (SPMGs) in the five major states the Ganga flows through, namely Uttarakhand, UP,
Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal.

According to the environment ministry’s latest data, notices have been sent to 3,933 industrial units to install online monitoring devices. Of them, 1,782 industrial units have installed such systems, while another 509 are in the process of doing so. A total number of 864 industries are sending 24/7 data to the CPCB. According to the official data, there are 764 grossly polluting industries on Ganga’s main stem which generate about 501 litres of wastewater on a daily basis.