PCB to review action-taken report on violations of green laws by apartments, commercial units in Kerala

CAG report had also highlighted the disastrous impact of unchecked illegal constructions

The Kerala State Pollution Control Board will review the action taken on the 2016 draft report of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s Kerala office that had flagged serious violations of environmental laws in apartments, commercial complexes and industrial units.

The move comes in the wake of a report in The Hindu BusinessLine on Saturday that the government had not yet acted on the report, which had highlighted the disastrous impact of unchecked illegal constructions and violations of environmental laws in the State.

The CAG report was titled ‘Implementation of Environmental Laws by Kerala State Pollution Control Board, Kerala Coastal Zone Management Authority, Sate Environment Impact Assessment Authority with respect to Apartments, Commercial Complexes, Hospitals, Hotels and Industrial units’.

It had recommended an investigation by the State government into the lapses on the part of the Pollution Control Board and local self-government institutions in not initiating legal action against Environment Clearance (EC) violations that took place between 2006 and 2013.

Senior board officials close to the development pointed out that the district offices will be asked to submit an action-taken report based on the CAG report. The Chief Environmental Engineers in the regional offices of the board in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode and the Environmental Engineers in the district offices have to submit an updated status of the violations in the apartments, commercial complexes, hospitals, hotels and industrial units mentioned in the CAG report, they said.

The CAG’s report had stated that some of the erring units had not even applied for consent to establish granted by the State Pollution Control Board under the various provisions of Environment Act. Some other units had not set up sewage treatment plant/effluent treatment plant, which is mandatory before getting the final consent to operate from the board.

The report had also found that these facilities were not achieving the environmental standards prescribed under the provisions of various laws. The board has the responsibility of initiating legal and punitive action against the units found to be not complying with the rules.