The Hindu : Environmentalists pick holes in Musi clean-up project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 08, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Environmentalists pick holes in Musi clean-up project

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD April 7. The Musi Parirakshana Samithi and various environmental activists of the twin cities expressed apprehension over the effectiveness of the Rs. 344-crore Musi clean-up project saying it had nothing in it to tackle the main problem of industrial effluents entering the river.

``This is nothing but a cover-up job of the authorities who failed miserably to check the heavy flow of industrial effluents into the Musi,'' the chairperson of Society for Protection of Environment and Quality of Life (SPEQL), J. Rama Rao, said at a meeting here on Monday.

The meeting highlighted the immense damage done to the lives of people residing in and around the Musi river by the callous letting out of effluents from various industrial units, particularly drug manufacturers.

Referring to the crucial component of the Musi clean-up project -- construction of five Sewerage Treatment Plants (STP) and connecting the mains and sewers to them by a 25 km pipeline to carry the mixed effluent and sewerage load coming from the Patancheru industrial area -- he said the "pipeline was a clear camouflage to cover up the failures of the authorities over the years.''

While the Supreme Court had issued clear directions asking the State Government to ensure that only organic sewage was allowed to flow into the river and toxic industrial effluents were segregated at the source itself, the latter had done little towards that end. The SPEQL chairperson maintained that this was nothing but an attempt by the authorities "to dilute pollution and more importantly their responsibilities.''

Moreover, he said the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board itself, in its affidavit filed in the Court, had admitted that only 91 of the 168 industrial units along the Musi course in and around the twin cities had compliance to effluent disposal norms at source. That too, only a partial compliance. "Against such a backdrop, will the project be of any help,'' speakers sought to know. Saying the pipeline would only further endanger the lives of those living along the Musi, they demanded that industrial effluents be treated at the source itself before being let out into the common effluent treatment plants.

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