Gujarat pollution board washes hands of creating buffer zones around waste treatment facilities

Central Pollution Control Board guidelines, however, state that no construction activity can take place within 500 metre of treatment, storage and disposal facilities

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17 May 2012, 6:19 am

Even as disposal and treatment of waste in Gujarat continues to pose a threat to residents in urban and rural areas, the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has washed its hand of any responsibility of buffering residential and commercial estates from waste treatment facilities under its jurisdiction. It has told the Union environment ministry that there are “practical issues” related to creating buffer zones around such facilities.

Gujarat’s poor track record

	The stretch from Ahmedabad through Vadodara in central Gujarat till Surat in south Gujarat is referred to as the Golden Corridor. However, areas near this stretch are increasingly becoming dumping ground for hazardous effluents and solid wastes. Gujarat happens to be the third highest producer of hazardous waste in the country after Rajasthan and Maharashtra. With the state government looking for more investments and employment opportunities for people, lessons on implementation of rules related to hazardous waste are yet to be learnt. A short reckoner of cases in which hazardous waste dumping went on under the nose of the authorities till people resisted: 2004: Hema Chemicals Case, Vadodara: In 2004, the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC), acting on a complaint by Vadodara-based non-profit, Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti (PSS), found that 77,000 tonnes of hazardous hexavalent chromium was dumped in the Gorwa locality. While the remediation measures are still on, several workers complained of illnesses. The company was closed down by GPCB but punitive measures against the owner are yet to be initiated. 2008: Bharuch Enviro Infrastructure Limited (BEIL), Ankleshwar, Bharuch district: On April 3, 2008, the toxic waste treatment plant catering to about 130-odd chemical industries caught a fire. GPCB found that instead of 60 tonnes of waste for treatment, the facility stored 6,000 tonnes of waste. The Jabalpur High Court had also floated a proposal to transport Bhopal's carcinogenic waste from the Union Carbide plant site to Gujarat. The state government dropped the plan after environmental activists objected to it.