Ghaziabad: National Green Tribunal has constituted a joint committee under the district magistrate to conduct a ground verification after hearing a petition alleging that jeans factories that do not have environmental clearances are discharging untreated wastewater into drains or onto agricultural fields. The committee has been tasked with submitting a report along with remedial action within three months.The order was passed on July 7 while hearing an application filed by environmental activist Varun Gulati. He contended that these units are in the red category of gross polluting industries (GPI). Under India’s environmental ranking system, industries are assigned a pollution index (PI) score between 0 and 100 based on their air emissions, wastewater discharge, and hazardous waste. Any industry with a PI score of 60 or above is legally classified as a red category industry. Seventeen GPI are included under the red category. Gulati claimed that these units are extracting groundwater and discharging tonnes of chemical-laced wastewater into open drains or agricultural fields, leading to groundwater poisoning.The principal bench comprising Chairperson Justice Prakash Srivastava and expert member Dr Afroz Ahmad disposed of the application and formed a joint committee of the member secretary of UPPCB, secretary of Ghaziabad Development Authority and the district magistrate. The DM will be coordinating the committee.“The joint committee will visit the sites, find out the illegally operating jeans dyeing and washing units in the area and will take appropriate remedial and punitive action. This exercise will be completed within three months and an action-taken report will be submitted with the registrar general of this tribunal. If it is found necessary, the report will be listed before the bench for consideration,” the tribunal ruled.Gulati said about 400 jeans dyeing and washing units are operating at Loni, Bhopura, Shaheed Nagar, Sarla Vihar, Rajendra Nagar, Pasonda, Sabhapur, Behta Hajipur and adjoining areas of the district.The counsel for the applicant referred to the geo-tagged and time-stamped photographs to substantiate the claim and said these units operate discreetly and do not have any identification or name, therefore making it difficult for them to implead them individually.Separate complaints had been filed with UP Pollution Control Board on June 19 and earlier in 2024. “Instead of taking any action, UPPCB forwarded the complaint to the secretary of Ghaziabad Development Authority on Aug 7, 2024,” the counsel said.Last month, the district administration,in coordination with the state pollution board and the electricity department, sealed more than 250 units — most of them dyeing operations in Loni and Sahibabad — found to be releasing untreated industrial effluents into the Shahdara drain, which flows into the Yamuna.
