KARACHI: Against the backdrop of strict directives of the Supreme Court, the Sindh industries and commerce department has drafted a new law making it mandatory for industrial units to install a pre-treatment plant within the factory premises to treat toxic waste, it emerged on Tuesday.

Senior officials said the new law — The Sindh Industries Registration Act — would also make it mandatory for all industries established since 1991 to get registered with the department.

“After the law gets passed by the assembly and duly promulgated, new industries would be bound to install pre-treatment plants before getting registered,” said Industries Minister Manzoor Wassan after chairing a meeting of industrialists at the Sindh Secretariat.

Sindh govt prepares draft law in compliance with apex court’s directives

He said the Sindh Industries Registration Act, 2017 was being presented before the cabinet. Those meetings would be precursor for finalising the law.

“All the industrialists have agreed to the law, which is being made in light of the Supreme Court’s order,” said Mr Wassan.

Officials shared the apex court’s directives in which it asked the provincial authorities to order removal of encroachments from all effluent treatment plants, including the TP-II Mehmoodabad, to enable them to start treating the outgoing toxic effluent of industries before discharging it into the sea.

The court also ordered installation of more treatment plants as the capacity of the current ones was not more than 150 million gallons daily (MGD), “which is too short to cope [with] the inflow of 500MGD of sewage”.

Besides, the court also ordered the government to make the installation of pre-treatment plants mandatory within factories to treat toxic effluent inside the units. Those who violated these orders would be committing a cognizable offence.

“In this regard, the responsibility shall be fixed on the industries and commerce department and management of the factories themselves,” said the officials quoting the apex court’s order.

They said the industries and commerce department through its directorate of industries regulated and monitored factories across Sindh.

“Since last many decades, this directorate has ceased to function on the issues of registration, inspection, monitoring and survey of the industrial units,” a senior official conceded.

“This attitude of our team has resulted in unplanned mushroom growth of industries across the province. There is hardly any monitoring process on industrial waste management and installation of effluent treatment plants within and outside the industries,” he added.

The officials said that in compliance with the order of the apex court various existing laws were thoroughly examined, but no relevant sections or clauses were found which could empower and authorise the department to perform its due functions.

They said that the West Pakistan Industries (Control on Establishment and Enlargement) Ordinance, 1963, had been adopted by Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; however, Sindh had not taken any step so far.

“Hence, no suitable legislation is in place. This gives a plausible excuse to the entire team of the directorate for not performing their due duties in this regard. The entire team of the industries directorate including deputy directors, assistant directors and industrial development officers, hence has become non-functional due to non-availability of the relevant laws,” the department conceded in a summary sent to the chief minister.

It said that under the prevailing circumstances and in the light of the court’s order a draft act, The Sindh Industries Registration Act, had been prepared and attached with the summary for its placement before the cabinet in its next meeting.

Minister Wassan said after passage of the law the relevant authorities could survey all the industries and no new units could be established without the department’s approval.

He claimed that all the industrialists had agreed to the new law. He added that another five effluent treatment plants were being installed in the city’s industrial areas.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2017