Private interest in green manufacture

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, DEC. 2. The Tamil Nadu Minister for Pollution Control, Mr. Pongalur N. Palanisami, today alleged that a car manufacturing unit near Chennai was selling toxic paint waste instead of incinerating it as had been directed by the State Pollution Control Board.

Inaugurating a one-day Environment Conclave on the fourth and concluding day of the Energy Summit 2000, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry-Southern Region (CII-SR), Mr. Palanisami said it was regrettable that an industry established with an investment of Rs. 3,500 crores resorted to such practices. The company had also let effluents into a nearby village, Thandalam, he alleged.

Citing instances of serious impact on the health of people and abnormality (dwarfism) among their children in the area near the SIPCOT chemical industrial estate at Cuddalore before a common effluent treatment plant was put up there, Mr. Palanisami appealed to industries to respect their environmental obligations.

He said the State government's proposal to put up a solid waste disposal site at Siruseri, near Chennai, had not been implemented because part of the identified land had been allotted to industries. The government was acquiring alternative sites near Mahabalipuram, besides Tirupur and Karur (knitted garment and textile centres) for solid waste disposal. The government had recently made it mandatory for hospitals with 500 beds to instal single or common incinerators by early next year for disposal of medical waste.

Drawing the attention of entrepreneurs to the relaxation of coastal zone regulations, Mr. Palanisami urged them to take advantage of this to put up resorts, hotels and water sports centres along the 1,000-km Tamil Nadu coast. The PCB was preparing a zonal map, he added.

Mr. N. R. Krishnan, an expert on law on environment and former administrator, said it was mainly through case law and interpretations of the Indian Constitution that the level of stringency had been raised, at times to unrealistic extents, by the judiciary while enforcing environmental protection norms. The provisions of Art. 21 (right to life) had been interpreted by the Supreme Court as right to a healthy life and clean environment, while its decision in Subash Chandra v State of Bihar made enforcement of environmental protection mandatory even at the cost of jobs and State revenue.

Similarly, constitutional provisions (Art. 253) empowering Parliament to enact legislation exceeding its specified area of power vis-a-vis the States if it was warranted to give effect to international treaties, had been used to introduce laws on environmental protection.

However, in developed countries, environmental laws were being increasingly used as a non-tariff barrier to imports. Also, investors in developed countries were eager to ensure that their companies did not shift production facilities to developing countries merely to take advantage of lax enforcement of environmental laws and subsequently face huge public liability claims as had happened in the case of Union Carbide at Bhopal. It was their fear of a steep fall in stock values that was partly responsible for the campaign for enforcement of environmental protection in developing countries. Thus there was a convergence of private and public interest in ecological protection, Mr. Krishnan observed.

Mr. John Moffet, President, Statos Inc., Canada, which is working with the CII in evolving a plan for prevention of pollution as the primary strategy as distinct from remediation, said the strategy of prevention would address the issues at their roots along the entire value chain and turn ecological protection into a measure of cost reduction and higher productivity and profitability.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Business
Previous : Consumer price index up 5 points in Oct.
Next     : Cement cos see revival in demand