HYDERABAD: Eleven mills have so far started crushing sugar cane in ongoing season without bothering to comply with directives of Supreme Court-mandated commission on water supply and sanitation in Sindh, which had ordered the mills to install effluent treatment plants before the onset of 2019-20 crushing season.
The order passed on January 4 this year had also warned that in case the mills failed to comply with the directive, the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) would seal the industrial units.
Sepa had yet to make a move to seal the errant mills or conduct sample analysis of effluent of the 11 mills located in the agency’s Hyderabad and Sukkur regions, it was learnt on Thursday.
There are 24 mills in Hyderabad — of them 11 are owned by one group — and none of them has installed effluent treatment plants (ETPs). Eight are likely to start crushing and three will not run this season. The rest of 13 are owned by different companies and three of them will remain closed while 10 will crush cane this season. Eight of them have their plants and two have not set up their ETPs so far.
“Sampling of the 16 mills including those having ETPs or those without ETPs is to be done,” said a source in Sepa. Personal hearing of mills’ representatives was conducted in November after physical verification and its detailed report was lying with Sepa Karachi office, said the source.
Similarly, out of eight sugar factories in Sukkur region, six have installed ETPs. One of them has made 60 per cent progress on ETP’s installation and another has to build lagoons. Their sampling is to be carried out for this crushing season. Most of these mills are located in Sukkur, Khairpur and Ghotki districts.
Since the mills’ effluent affects freshwater bodies and groundwater, directly and indirectly, in rural areas to the great disadvantage of rural population, the commission had taken notice of the nonexistence of ETPs in the mills.
Sepa officials who were summoned by the commission had complained that factory owners were so powerful that they were often not allowed by factory managements to visit the mills’ premises.
The commission then employed services of Dr Ghulam Murtaza Arain of Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources to have a report prepared on the sugar mills, 38 in all, which divides the factories into two categories ie the mills which have already installed ETPs and those which have either initiated the process of installation or remain without ETPs.
Under Dr Arain’s supervision and as per commissions’ directives, Sepa had examined reports of the mills’ consultants for the establishment of ETPs and then around 18 months’ time was allowed to the mills to install the plants by 2019-20 season or Sepa “would seal the (non-complying) industries”.
As commission’s one year term came to an end in January this year it submitted on Jan 7 the final report to the SC, which mentioned “the commission passed an order on Jan 4 that all industries have to complete installation of treatment plants and make them functional before (the start of) crushing season 2019-20 and in case of failure Sepa will seal industries”.
The commission noted in the final report that Sindh had 38 sugar mills, out of which 33 were operational and five were not functioning, and only four of the operational mills had ETPs. The rest of 29 mills were functioning without ETPs, they discharged untreated effluent into lagoons and storage ponds on mills’ land for evaporation, release into saline water drains (where available) or used by farmers for cultivation.
A task force that included Sepa officers later visited all sugar mills after the intervention of the commission and submitted a report with suggestions for installation of effluent treatment plants.
The commission had said that out of the 29 mills, four would complete work on ETPs in 2018-19 season and the remaining 25 submitted their Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) reports to Sepa in the second week of Dec 2018 for approval of ETPs.
All the cases of IEE were scrutinised by Sepa in the presence of member of the task force and issued IEE approvals in the first week of Jan 2019 for installation of plants.
The commission then passed the order on Jan 4, stating that “all industries have to complete installation of treatment plants and make them functional before the advent of crushing season 2019-20 and in case of failure Sepa will seal the industries”.
Since then Sepa has not collected samples of effluent of mills and the agency has not issued any statement in this regard. Sepa director general Naeem Mughal was not available for comments.
Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2019
