MPCB makes port trust pay for oil spill

The agency has also accounted for the five-month delay since the oil leak.

Mahul oil leakage occurred in October last year.

THE Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has forfeited Mumbai Port Trust’s (MbPT) bank guarantees amounting to Rs 50 lakh and has sought additional bank guarantee of more than Rs 1 crore from the port trust for its failure to complete even 50 per cent of the clean-up operations since the Mahul oil leakage that occurred in October last year.

The agency has also accounted for the five-month delay since the oil leak.

The MPCB has also threatened the MbPT with prosecution if it fails to comply with the new conditions laid down.

In the meantime, the MbPT has been directed to provide a “credible temporary interim stand” to take care of any emergency that may arise till the tier-1 facility is in place. For this, the MPCB has sought an irrevocable bank guarantee of Rs 25 lakh within 15 days.

According to the MPCB, besides failure to complete clean-up operations, the port trust’s non-compliances include failure to set up a tier-1 facility to combat oil spills of up to 700 tonnes within the Mumbai harbour. It also includes the port’s failure to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study after the leakage.

Although the MbPT has removed oil from rock bund as well as a portion of the sea bed along the shore at Pir Pau near Mahul, it has failed to remove scattered oil coated boulders and rock lying on the sea bed, according to MPCB officials. As a penalty for the delay, the board will not return the bank guarantee of Rs 25 lakh and has sought an additional bank guarantee of Rs 50 lakh giving MbPT three months to complete the work.

Further, rapping the port trust for failing to set up the tier-1 facility and undertaking the EIA studies, the MPCB has refused to return bank guarantees of Rs 12.5 lakh each. The pollution control board has also sought bank guarantees worth Rs 37.5 lakh for each of the compliances in the future.

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The MPCB has directed the Port Trust to establish the facility within a year and submit the EIA report within six months.

“The money has already been collected from the oil companies, but in three years, MbPT has not been able to set up the tier-1 facility which shows serious negligence on its part. Our action became necessary as there is no facility in place to immediately start clean-up operations in case an oil spill occurs in the future,” said P K Mirashe, assistant secretary (technical) at the MPCB.

The MPCB has also sought Rs 1 crore each from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) for not speeding the establishment of the tier-1 facility, said Mirashe.

anjali.lukose@expressindia.com

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