Five industrial units in Eloor-Edayar to be shut

KOCHI: The State Pollution Control Board has served closure notice to five industrial units in Eloor -Edayar industrial stretch for not complying with the effluent treatment norms stipulated by the Supreme Court. The notice has been served by district environmental engineer. As the deadline set by the apex court on setting up ETP ended on May 22, the state PCB officials had started inspecting industries to check violations. Closure notices were served to Hi power Industries, Deccan Industries, Euro Polymers, Fayaz Chemicals and Travancore Polymers on Friday.

“As many as 33 units have been inspected during the inspection which started on May 23. Two units Ramanand Electrocoats and Essar Enterprises which were served with closure notice has been given permission to reopen after setting up proper ETP. We have revisited the two units to ensure that they have a functional ETP,” said M.P. Thrideep Kumar, environmental engineer, PCB. Meanwhile, enforcing the SC order on ETP is a tough challenge for the Board due to lack of basic details. Though the state has more than 50,000 registered industries, only those units which have effluents will be impacted by the SC order. The PCB has the list of registered industries, but there is no classification based on whether it is an effluent discharging unit or not.