Written by: Express News Service
2 min readVadodaraJul 20, 2011 01:47 AM IST
First published on: Jul 20, 2011 at 01:47 AM IST
The Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has outsourced the ambient air quality monitoring in Vapi,considered the second most critically-polluted cluster in India,to a private company. A GPCB report has revealed that the monitoring done in the past one decade has failed to monitor many crucial air pollution indicators for lack of equipment.
“Benzene,Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs),Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs),Polichronated Biphynls (PCB)s,vinyl chloride are not being monitored by GPCB as no measuring facility is available,” the report published on the GPCB website said.
J V Patel,Regional Officer,GPCB,said,“A private firm has taken just one sample in the last two months to monitor these indicators.”
Towards end of the last year,the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had lifted the ban on new industries in Vapi,which was on the second spot in the Comprehensive Environment Pollution Index (CEPI) until last year.
The report said: “Vapi Gujarat Industrial Developmental Corporation (GIDC) is having an overall CEPI of 88.09 which qualifies it for the critically polluted tag on the CEPI score. Vapi has an Air CEPI index of 74,Water CEPI index of 74.5 and and land CEPI index of 72 and ranks second with an overall CEPI index of 88.09.”
The GPCB report added that a total of 151 industries were served with closure notices,but little had improved. “For the last two years,151 industrial units have been issued closure notices by GPCB under the Water Act,1974 and the Air Act,1981. Besides,industrial units have been issued notice of direction under environment norms,” said the GPCB report.
Contrary to stringent monitoring by GPCB on air and water pollution,the latest Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) monitoring report about Vapi Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) filed on March 23,2011 and released last month showed a Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) of 523 in the outlet against the prescribed norm of 250 points.
The Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) in the outlet was 122 against the stipulation of 30 points and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels was 8,376 points against 2,100 points.
The ammonical nitrogen level was in excess of the prescribed 50 points in the outlet.
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