Chandigarh, July 22:
A meeting was presided over by Environment Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer at Mohali with Rahul Tewari, Secretary Science Technology & Environment, Adarsh Pal Vig, Chairman Punjab Pollution Control Board, Er. Krunesh Garg, Member Secretary, PPCB and Chief Environmental Engineer namely Er. Pardeep Gupta, Er. GS Majithia and Er. Gulshan Rai of Punjab Pollution Control Board in attendance.
Various matters related to present status of implementation of Pollution Control Laws; Water Testing; issues related to plastic; problems faced by the department in implementation and steps which can be taken to ensure proper implementation, were discussed during the meeting.
The Minister expressed his concerns on the matter of stoppage of discharge of partially treated/ untreated domestic effluent of various towns into rivers of the State. He also stressed upon need to effectively implement ban on plastic carry bags and create awareness among manufacturers, traders, stockiest, general public regarding Single Use Plastic items.
He also emphasized that during current rainy season, activities like roof top rain water harvesting & carrying out plantation drive during current monsoon/ Van Mahotsav season alongwith development of mini/urban forests to improve air quality in the State, must be ensured.
During meeting, while discussing the issue of stubble burning, officers of the Board informed Hon’ble Minister regarding various in-situ & ex-situ measures being taken and usage of paddy straw as fuel being carried out by various industries.
The Minister asked officers of PPCB to encourage more industries to use paddy straw as fuel in their boilers. Officers of PPCB also apprised Hon’ble Minister regarding Online Continuous Effluent Monitoring Systems (OCEMS) installed by the industries and also live feed was shown to the Minister during meeting.
Meet Hayer asked officers of PPCB to check noise pollution from various sources such as firecrackers, vehicle noise, marriage palaces etc. He also appealed to the traders, stockiest not to sell China Dor etc, which is harmful for the public. He also appealed to the industrialists to ensure compliance of the provisions of the Environmental laws in order to improve the quality of Environment of the State.
Further, the Minister instructed officers of Punjab Pollution Control Board to increase checking of industrial units for ensuring proper compliance of various environmental laws and take strict action against all the violators.
