Last week, a town on Assam-Meghalaya border was tagged ‘world’s worst polluted’. Both states now want to change that

These industrial units are from a number of sectors including coke production, cement, ferro alloy, steel, distillation, and brick.

The industrial units within Meghalaya are located in the Byrnihat Export Promotion Industrial Park (EPIP) and those falling within Assam are largely in Tamulikuchi in Assam’s Kamrup Metropolitan district, located across the National Highway running along the town. This mixed jurisdiction has meant that authorities on either side often blame the other for the state of affairs: with Meghalaya pointing to a higher number of ‘red category – or highly polluting — industries in the Assam side, while authorities in Assam highlighting hill cutting in Meghalaya.

However, last week, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said that he has written to Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma seeking a joint action with experts and officials from both states on board to tackle the pollution crisis.

In the meantime, officials from the Pollution Control Board of Assam (PCBA), the district administration, industry representatives, representatives from the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), the District Disaster Management Authority, and others from Assam’s Kamrup Metropolitan district met to draw up a mitigation plan.

“After the meeting today, a joint team of officials from PCBA and the district administration have begun compliance checks and it has been decided, if required we may even shut down some if found to be non-compliant. We may ask others to enhance their pollution control measures. The enforcement department has also started checking vehicles plying the highway for compliance with pollution norms. We have also issued prohibitory orders against hill cutting, tree cutting and burning fires in the areas,” Biswajit Saikia, Dimoria’s additional district commissioner, said.

PCBA chairman Arup Kumar Misra said that cement factories in the area are the first focus.

“Cement being one of the most polluting industries, we have started real time monitoring for a week in eight of the cement factories there… Byrnihat is critical for us and we want to see improvement within a month,” he said.

Saikia said that a five-year plan has been drawn up: with short-term steps for the next six months, mid-term steps for the next 1-2 years, and long-term steps over the next five years.

“The initial steps are to ensure pollution norms compliance by the industries, stopping tree and hill cutting and burning of waste. A major plantation drive will also be undertaken in the next six months. Among the mid-term steps, we are planning to have industries convert 30 percent of their industrial campuses into green zones. In the long term, the aim is to switch the energy sources of the industries from traditional sources to non-polluting sources,” he said.

According to data recorded in the Meghalaya state action plan for Prevention and Control of Air Pollution released in December 2024, there are a total of 39 industrial units in Assam and 41 in Meghalaya in the Byrnihat. It records that 20 of those in Assam and five in Meghalaya are ‘red category’ industries.

On Tuesday, the Meghalaya Forest & Environment Department also ordered the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board to conduct a “comprehensive audit and inspection” of all industries under its jurisdiction and to submit an action taken report within a week.

“We have constituted a task force for this and they will go for inspections and do an industry wise audit. We had already ordered closure notices last month to seven industrial units found violating pollution norms,” MSPCB chairman R. Nainamalai said.