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| Serious lapses found in pollution control by railways | | | Agencies
NEW DELHI, Nov 25: A parliamentary panel has found serious lapses in railways' pollution control measures and observed that the national transporter has not issued any comprehensive guidelines for transporting pollution-intensive commodities like coal, iron ore, cement, fertiliser and petroleum.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in its latest report has said that the Central Pollution Control Board had also failed to issue any guidelines for the transport of these commodities.
The 22-member committee, headed by K V Thomas, was dismayed to note that all the guidelines issued by the Railway Ministry did not yield the desired results in controlling the emission of pollution from transporting pollution-intensive commodities as these are guided by commercial considerations only. On noticing that despite its commitment to alleviate the environmental impact of carriage and handling of sensitive cargo, no substantitive action was taken by the railways to integrate environmental concerns with operational policies, the committee has impressed upon the ministry to formulate a comprehensive and more reliable environment policy for coordination with the central and various state pollution control boards.
It has suggested that the Railway Ministry should ensure regular and effective monitoring to ensure strict compliance with the pollution control laws at all levels so that advance and corrective steps are taken to minimise air pollution.
PAC was perturbed to note that railways had neither initiated any measure to fix standards for emissions from the use of diesel for traction purposes nor any system had been set up to monitor the emissions from diesel locos and assess or compare the extent of emissions with the international standard.
It noted that there were no instructions to the zonal railways for regular monitoring of emission levels and, thus there was no such monitoring anywhere in the railways.
Out of 16 zones, bio-diesel was used only in five zones. The railways also did not have any inhouse bio-diesel production facility except at experimental level in some plants.
PAC has taken note of the CPCB study in March 2012 which had revealed that noise levels were in excess of the prescribed limit at all stations and no monitoring mechanism had been put in place by the railways to gauge the noise levels.
Quoting an audit survey, the panel said that it was found that 31 per cent of 2439 passengers at 34 stations across 17 railway zones were of the view that the noise levels at stations were unbearable. The survey also said that noise levels inside AC coaches had increased.
The committee noted that in the absence of any specific instructions either from pollution control boards or from Railway Board, the zones have not initiated any remedial measure to reduce noise pollution.
It said that no instruction had been issued at the level of Railway Board regarding noise control measures near habitation or silence zones.
The committee said that the Board in consultation with the pollution control boards should constitute a high-powered body with adequate technical expertise for formulating a comprehensive policy to control environmental and noise pollution in trains and stations and carry out surprise checks to ensure effective implementation of the measures initiated to that effect.
Emphasising on installation of water recycling plants in a time-bound manner, the panel asked the Ministry to impress upon the zonal railways in no uncertain terms to unfailingly adhere to the instructions issued for installation of water recycling plants and rail water harvesting systems at all the stations. The committee found that the system of garbage disposal in 212 stations over 17 zones revealed that in 64 per cent of the cases, total centralised dumping yard was not available within the stations premises resulting in littering near station premises and along tracks.
The panel asked the Ministry to set up separate waste management cells in all the zones. |
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