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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Green nod leeway for 'white' industries

Green nod leeway for 'white' industries

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published Published on Mar 6, 2016   modified Modified on Mar 6, 2016
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: The Union environment ministry has reclassified industries depending on their pollution potential, ranging from 60 "red" category units prohibited from ecologically fragile and protected areas to 36 "white" industries that will not require any environmental clearance.

The list released today after a year-long internal exercise is intended to appropriately reflect the pollution potential of India's diverse industrial units taking into account their emissions, effluents, hazardous wastes and consumption of resources.

"The new categories will give a clear picture - 25 industrial sectors which were not critically polluting had earlier been categorised as red. This was (giving) wrong impressions," environment minister Prakash Javadekar said in a statement issued today.

Industrial units involved in the manufacture of detergents and soaps, alcohol, including beer, tobacco products, including cigarettes, steel products and vegetable oils are among those earlier classified as "red" that have been now labelled "orange."

The heavy polluting units such as distilleries, fertilisers, dyes, pesticides, tanneries, integrated steel plants, smelters, petrochemicals, cement and pharmaceuticals remain in the "red" category.

But the reclassification has introduced a new "white" category that the ministry says are "practically non-polluting" and thus would not require any consent to operate. The "white" industries would only need to inform the state pollution control boards about their operations.

The "white" category includes industrial units involved in air-conditioners, bicycles, biopesticides, cotton garments, leather cutting and stitching and solar power generation through solar photovolatic cells, wind power and mini-hydroelectric plants, among others.

Environmental analysts have questioned the decision to place compact fluorescent lamps and mini-hydroelectric plants with a capacity up to 25MW in the "white" category. They point out that the CFL industry handles mercury, a potential toxin, while even mini-hydroelectric plants could block river flow.

"This reclassification needs some rationalisation," said Chandra Bhushan, deputy director general with the Centre for Science and Environment, a New Delhi-based non-government organisation.

"It appears to have focused on pollution potential alone, ignoring the ecological impacts of certain industries - placing mini-hydel plants of up to 25MW in the 'white' category would allow them to operate without any assessment - this could have severe impacts on river flow," Bhushan told The Telegraph.

A report from Toxics Link, a non-government organisation tracking pollution, had cited Indian government guidelines for CFL and mercury management that specify that mercury should be "handled properly" at the manufacturing level to "minimise its impact on the environment."

The guidelines specify certain techniques to prevent leakages of mercury into the environment at various stages of mercury handling and management.

The Telegraph, 6 March, 2016, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160306/jsp/nation/story_73094.jsp#.VtxktuY1t_k


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