Government agencies have not yet initiated proper measures to check illegal discharge of effluents into the Periyar from industrial units located close to the banks of the river in Edayar.
The Department of Irrigation and the Kerala State Pollution Control Board are playing hide and seek as incidents of discolouration of the Periyar waters near the industrial area are on the rise. No effective steps were taken to check this, going by the reports of the State Level Monitoring Committee on Solid Waste Management (SLMC).
The Board has put the blame on the Irrigation department for not taking the lead in desilting the spots close to the Pathalam bund while stating that the presence of mud and rubbles were hampering the efforts to carry out proper sampling at the time of an episode of discolouration.
Bund road
Despite repeated reminders, the Irrigation department is yet to construct a bund road that was proposed as an effective step to carry out regular monitoring along the industrial belt. A senior official of the department said that the proposal for the bund road construction is pending before the government. Lack of funds is being pointed out as a reason, according to the official.
The SLMC had repeatedly asked the authorities to clear the overgrown vegetation outside the compound wall of the industrial units on the banks of the river. The Irrigation department has passed the buck on to the District Industries department by saying that the Industries department should be asking the industrial units to clear it.
The SLMC had stated that the overgrown vegetation is acting as a deterrent in capturing visuals of the possible unauthorised discharge of effluents, especially from several units that lacked an in-house mechanism to treat effluents. Moreover, local residents had complained on several occasions before that erring units had used the overgrown vegetation to cover illegal pipelines to dump effluents into the river.
