RAWALPINDI, Jan 6: The Ministry of Environment has warned 23 industrial units in the Hattar Industrial Zone to redress the problems of industrial effluents or face action under the environmental protection laws, official sources said.
The effluents emanating from industries in Hattar were contaminating drinking water and were also polluting the underground water table. Flowing through streams, the effluents were finally finding their way to rivers, causing damage at a much wider scale than imagined.
The ministry of environment intends to take stern action against chronic violators but at the same time does not want to pursue too harsh a policy that could cause these units to close down as out of the 330 industrial units in the Estate, only 149 (or 45 per cent) are operational.
A working group has been formed to urgently look into the problems of industrial effluents in the Hattar Industrial Estate. The decision to form the working group was taken at a high level meeting, held in Islamabad on Saturday, under the chairmanship of the federal minister for environment, Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat. The working group, comprising representatives of the Haripur district administration and representatives of local industrial units and officials of the ministry of environment, would monitor all industrial waste and report the violations to the ministry.
According to a ministry official, the effluent being discharged was beyond the permitted limits or standards and contained high amounts of toxins like DOD and COD.
At least 25 per cent of the negative effects of pollution could have been controlled through good governance but the owners of industries did not pay any heed to the negative externalities their units were burdening the society with and which was entirely in their control.
The meeting also decided to prepare a project concept (PC-1) for a joint public-private treatment plant for the management of industrial waste by the first week of March. After this, construction of these joint treatment plants, along the lines of the Korangi and the Kasur Industrial Estates, would be undertaken. Funds for constructing these treatment plants would be provided by the Hattar Industrial Estate and the Export Development Fund, the sources said.
The Hattar Industrial Estate, located in Kot Najibullah in Haripur, was established in 1984 and is spread over 1,063 acres. Most of the units there were large chemical plants or those pertaining to heavy electrical engineering, textile, food processing, steel and vegetable ghee.
Online adds: The city district government has decided to shift the industrial units from the residential areas in order to make Rawalpindi an environment-friendly city.
In this connection, the district environment department has furnished its report with the district government recommending the transfer of leather and furniture factories, flour mills and brick kilns from the city limits.
