The National Green Tribunal Western Zone bench ordered the formation of a joint committee with one representative each from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Central Pollution Control Board, Amdavad Municipal Corporation and the ministry of environment and forests to inspect the Sabarmati for industrial pollution and submit a report.
An application has been made to the NGT alleging unlawful discharge of untreated effluent, and the NGT issued notices to the authorities and several factories operating from the Sewage Farm, Danilimda and Behrampura areas.
The petitioner’s counsel said, “All the industrial units in the areas concerned were required to adopt zero-liquid discharge technology, which was also one of the conditions in the ‘Consent to Establish’ given by the State PCB (GPCB), and they are still not adopting the said technology and are continuing to discharge untreated effluent into the Sabarmati, which is leading to massive pollution of the river water and groundwater.” There were allegations earlier that several units that did not set up ZLD systems had begun operating and discharging effluent into AMC pipelines. The AMC and GPCB recently carried out inspections and sealed some factories.