Baddi Industry Pollution Haovc :

Himachal Pradesh may soon have an industrial zone in each district, given the scale on which the state government is playing Santa Claus to investors. Industries are heading for this tax haven to grab the bundle of goodies: a 100 per cent income tax holiday for the first five years, 30 per cent for the next five and 25 per cent for the five years thereafter. Plus a 15 per cent capital subsidy for purchase of plots and machinery, a slew of exemptions on electricity duty and so on.

Already, in the last two years, the state government drew investments of Rs 8,869 crore. With these new sops, industrial activity will escalate further. But will Himachal be able to cope with the magnitude of further activity.

Dreams to disillusion :

In 1980, when 3,500 hectares of agricultural land was converted to an industrial town, the local people thought they'd reap the benefits of industrialisation. But hopes soured in Baddi-Barotiwala, one of Himachal's mega industrial zones. Now, the people rue the day they allowed in 400 units, of which 100 offload sludge, used oil and process residues into Baddi's Sarsa river.

The State Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board (seppcb)'s survey and audit report, 2002 puts the hazardous solid waste and municipal solid waste produced by the Baddi-Barotiwala industrial area at 44,000 tonnes annually. In the absence of secondary treatment plants, liquid wastes are directly released into rivers and solid wastes are incinerated on riverbanks.

Unbridled growth, with unregulated dumping of waste, is also choking the Sarsa river system. A paper mill and soap factory pollutes the Balad tributary, while thread mills choke the Upper Sandholi and Khera. The Chikni has a tanning unit. The Sarsa itself is black and full of fat. Residents lost their livestock whed used to fed on river water, fish have also died.

Authrities said stopped using its water, but people can't avoid the river. But it goes across  fields, schools, hospital and market. In the 18 km stretch, there is only one bridge, so people wade through the knee-deep dirty water every day, despite endemic skin disease in Kalyanpur, Sheetalpur, Landewal, Kheri Nar Singh, Dasu Majra, Bhud-Berian and Chundi. Tanning effluents in the Chikni rivulet in Chowkiwala have also caused skin disease in 12 villages.

Besides the river pollution, even the water table in Sarsa's catchment areas has reduced, thanks to illegal quarrying on the Sarsa riverbed. Most wells in nearby villages have also dried up.

Waste Trouble :

 To treat the water, three secondary state plants were planned in 2002, but are yet to take off. The Union government released Rs 3 crore, the state had to donate land, industry was to bear half the cost of the treatment plant. But nothing happened.

The impact of industry is not in Baddi alone. Rules are flouted everywhere, even facilitating arc furnaces, drugs and tanning in non-industrial areas. An estimated 692 tonnes of sludge, 33.49 kilolitres used oil, 2978 empty containers of hazardous chemicals, 17. 44 tonnes of process residues and 1023.93 tonnes of incineration ash, slag, scrap, dust and flyash are dumped in Himachal each month by industries.

Perhaps it's the right time to review the 'development' model in the state, which Baddi-Barotiwala embodies.Short term measures include ensuring complete ban on biomass and garbage burning in the area, ensuring proper management of solid waste as per the provisions of the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 with special stress on checking instance of fire in the waste storage areas before its scientific disposal.

Curbing encroachment by scrap dealers in a time-bound manner and shifting these to a designated site with requisite infrastructure has also been stressed upon. But not even an iota of the action plan has been translated into reality and the air pollution of this industrial belt continues to deteriorate with each passing day.

While the action plan also recommended ban on using husk-fired boilers in future and the existing industries were supposed to submit an action plan to phase out the use of husk-fired boilers and popularise the use of solar system.