December 08, 2006	Friday	Ziqa'ad 16, 1427

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RAHIM YAR KHAN, Dec 7: In a rare show a top official of the Environment Impact Assessment attended an open court on the issue of a sugar mills being set up here without addressing environment concerns.

EIA director Ahmed Nadeem attended the forum on the premises of the DCO office here on Wednesday and heard those for and against the Ittehad Sugar Mills nearing completion at Akramabad.

Akhter H Awan, the lawyer representing complainants, said that the mills administration took the work in hand without fulfilling legal requirements or seeking clearance of the Ministry of Environment.

Awan told Dawn later that the consultants of Ittehad Sugar Mills had filed a report with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of Punjab that their sugar mill was environment friendly and that it should be issued an NOC.

He said that this report should have been sent to the EPA before the initiation of work on the project.

“This is a flagrant violation of the section 12 of the Environmental Protection Act of 1997 and of regulation 8(2)(A) of IE&EIA regulation 2000.”

Giving further violation of the law, he said the mills did not run a notice in the national and local press to invite public objections to the project.

It rather got published an advertisement on Nov 27 last and gave only 10 days for objections which was violation of section 13.Awan said the EPA director should have also attended the Wednesday’s forum under the law.

He said the Ittehad Sugar Mills was supposed to crush 8,000 tons of cane daily, a capacity which would be doubled later. Similarly, he claimed that the mills would also establish an ethanol plant, a board making factory and a power generation plant.

“All the plans have not been mentioned in the report submitted by the mills to the EPA.”

Awan said that Ittehad Sugar Mills had been established on an area of 123 acres and 2,000 trolleys would come here daily but no arrangement had been made for their parking.

He said this traffic would also cause pollution and accidents. He said the EPA (south) director had issued an Environmental Protection Order (EPO) to the Layyah Sugar Mills to make the mills according to the national environmental quality standards.

The Ittehad Sugar Mills administration, he said, was given only some days to remove all these objections otherwise a complaint would be lodged with the Environmental Tribunal against the chief executive and directors of the mills.

He said the punishment could be a fine of up to Rs1 million and Rs100,000 daily from the first day of the mill’s construction.

Mills deputy cane mananger Abdul Rauf Gujjar said the objections were politically motivated.

He said the project would benefit hundreds of poor people of the area besides bringing prosperity to the region.

He said there was enough cane yield in the region but the establishment of new mills was being opposed.