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| Even authorised kilns produce carcinogenic emission in Budgam | | No environmental impact assessment by PCB, Department of Environment | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
BUDGAM, Oct 12: While as none of the owners or operators of 155 completely illegal and unauthorized brick kilns in the Central Kashmir district of Budgam has faced any action from the authorities for brazen violation of a dozen-odd revenue and ecology related laws in the last over 10 years, even remaining 47 have shown little regard for the undertaking given to the Jammu & Kashmir State Pollution Control Board (PCB). Consequently, the violations of PCB’s physical as well as technical parameters are galore---causing serious threat to human life, agriculture crops and orchards.
Under section 19 of The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1981, Government of Jammu & Kashmir has notified the state as an ‘air pollution control area’. Haven of the brick kiln operators---Budgam---falls in it fully. This particular notification authorised the government to place all 17 of the highly polluting industries in category ‘A’ and ‘B’ for the purpose of issuing environmental clearance in favour of the units operating in conformity with a host of guidelines and criteria fixed by the Central and the State PCB. While the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest runs the authority of clearing category ‘A’ units, those falling in category ‘B’ are supposed to be examined by the state’s Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (EIAA) since May 2006.
EIAA, headed by a retired Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF), P P Sharma, has neither held a meeting nor forced PCB or Department of Environment, Ecology & Remote Sensing to conduct an Environment Impact Assessment of those 47 brick kilns which have been operating on the board’s Consent To Operate (CTO). The result is that the stationary masonry chimneys of the required height have been installed but most of the licensees have neither created necessary chambers in the kilns nor fitted the probes on the top for collecting particulate matter and gaseous emissions for chemical analysis. Under the law, each and every unit is supposed to be fitted with the devices that liquefy the emissions. The collections are supposed to be subjected to a chemical analysis which determines the fate of the licenses issued.
It has been observed that PCB authorities have simply issued the Consent To Establish (CTE) over certain physical parameters and nobody has bothered to check the technical parameters before issuing the CTO.
While the newly appointed Chairman of PCB, Vinod Ranjan, believes that his organization has “only a limited role”, others in the PCB admit, on the condition of anonymity, that not more than 12 brick kiln operators in Budgam district had fulfilled all the formalities required to be held for operating a unit. “It’s a fact that neither PCB nor Department of Environment, Ecology & Remote Sensing has till date conducted any EIA on the authorized or unauthorized brick kilns in Budgam or any other district”, Muttahara A W Dewa, who has worked as a senior scientist with PCB for over 15 years, admitted to Early Times. Muttahara is now posted as Coordinator of Environmental Information System (Envis) at Department of Environment.
Muttahara said that her department had the mandate of advising Ministry of Environment on all such matters related to air, water and other environmental pollution but PCB had the primary responsibility of conducting EIA. She pleaded that only the head of her department could explain as to why such an exercise had never been conducted. While the outgoing Director, Abdul Razaq, did not respond to phone calls, new HOD, Ravi Kesar, was stated to have joined only today. Muttahara revealed that under the notification issued in May 2006, state was bound to allow use of fuel only after a detailed analysis of all kinds of fuel used in the industrial units.
This correspondent observed that not only the worst quality of coal, imported from Bihar, West Bengal and other states, was being used by authorized as well as unauthorized brick kilns in Budgam but quite a number of them were openly slicing rubber tyres and using the same as fuel alongwith coal.
“Bad quality of coal, rubber and plastic, when used as fuel in the kilns, does create highly carcinogenic agents like emission of sulphur dioxide, which has already damaged the quality of mangoes in R S Pora area of Jammu”, said a PCB scientist.
Working as an additional secretary (technical) in Health Department at Civil Secretariat, Dr Shafqat told Early Times that the emission at most of the brick kilns in Budgam and other districts was full of carcinogenic (cancer creating) agents like carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and other dioxins which were highly dangerous not only for human life but also for agriculture and horticulture produce. He said that these emissions could cause different genetic disorders, including congenital procreation, in addition to gastric disorders, bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and other diseases to chest, lungs, kidneys and other organs.
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