GUJRAT: Assistant Commissioner (AC) Zaheer Abbas Chattha sealed a chicken feed factory under construction in the middle of residential areas of Samman, Mohla, Dheer Kay Khurd and River Gardens along GT road.

The factory owners have been ordered to stop construction since the district administration and other authorities concerned were yet to grant permission to the establishment in a residential area.

AC Chattha took action after scores of residents and elected representatives from the aforementioned areas lodged a protest with the deputy commissioner (DC) against the construction work despite previous legal actions against the owners around six months ago.

Under-construction building is surrounded by residential areas

DC Muhammad Ali Randhawa had appointed the AC as the inquiry officer on the matter who then inspected and locked the site besides ordering the management to stop construction work. A detailed report was dispatched to the DC.

The owners only possess a conditional No-Objection Certificate (NOC) issued from the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) Lahore that too allegedly did not pay attention to the reservations of the residents. The district environment department as well as the then district government had already termed the construction work illegal begun without fulfilling conditions and seeking other relevant NOCs.

In the inquiry report, the AC said that the factory owners had violated rules time and again as the district government had already written to the EPA director general (DG) to cancel the NOC whereas the EPA Gujrat assistant director had also intimated the DG that the owners had started construction work without fulfilling conditions mentioned in the NOC.

The inquiry officer also recommended that the EPA DG be approached again to get the NOC cancelled since the functioning of the feed factory would be harmful for residents of the area besides causing pollution and diseases in adjoining areas. The DC was also asked in the recommendations to seek registration of another criminal case against the owners for illegally constructing the factory.

An official of the local EPA office told Dawn that even under the rules such an industrial activity had been prohibited in the area where the chicken feed factory was being established.

However, the factory owners also approached the DC and pleaded their case on the basis of the NOC they were issued by the EPA, but the AC’s report confirmed that the owners did not even comply with the mandatory conditions mentioned in the NOC.

Residents of the affected areas urged the chief minister to take notice of the official neglect and violation of laws in establishment of any such factory.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2017