Hyderabad: The Telangana govt’s plan to relocate nearly 2,800 polluting industries from Hyderabad to multiple locations across the state drew criticism from environmentalists, who warned that the move could simply shift the pollution burden rather than resolve it.Under the proposal, industries will be moved to nearly 60 locations across about 10 districts in Telangana. Critics argued that dispersing industrial units across several clusters could spread environmental risks to new areas where people already live, instead of containing pollution within a single regulated zone.“The idea of relocating polluting industries should ideally be to contain and manage pollution through a strong common infrastructure. If industries are scattered across multiple locations without robust monitoring and treatment facilities, the pollution problem will simply be redistributed,” said environmentalist B V Subba Rao.Rather than dispersed clusters, environmentalists proposed a single integrated manufacturing hub with shared pollution-control infrastructure.“The model should aim to centralise pharmaceutical production while ensuring common effluent treatment systems and stricter environmental oversight,” said Babu Rao, an environmentalist who worked extensively on this issue.However, the current proposal envisages a more dispersed relocation strategy. Around 500 pharmaceutical companies are proposed to be allotted land in the upcoming Pharma City within the planned Future City area, while other industries will be shifted to different industrial clusters outside the Outer Ring Road.The govt already identified a few potential relocation sites. Steel units currently operating in the industrial belts of Jeedimetla and Katedan are proposed to be moved to Rakamcherla in Vikarabad district. Oil-processing industries are likely to be shifted to the Buchinelly Industrial Park near Zaheerabad, while textile units are proposed to be relocated to Indresham near Sangareddy.“If the govt does not ensure strong pollution-control infrastructure at each new cluster, residents in those areas may end up facing the same air and water contamination issues that people in Hyderabad struggled with for years,” Babu Rao added.
