MARDIA Chemicals Ltd (MCL) of Gujarathas been producing H-, J- and K-acids,tobaid acid, vinyl sulphone, dye intermediates and sulphuric acid sinceJanuary 1991, with what are suspectedto be 'second-hand imported plants.Reports of pollution by the plantpoured in 1991 itself.
Complaints of air, water and groundwater pollution reached the GujaratEcology Commission (GEC) right from1992. The Ghc referred the complaintsto the Gujarat Pollution Control Board(GPCB), with no results. More complaints led the GEC to knock at theCentral Pollution Control Board'sdoors, which in turn referred back to theGPCB which said that pollution in Sayalawas well within limits.
Flooded by further complaints, theGEC finally appointed an independentexpert team comprising P R GhareKhan, former GICB member secretaryand R C Trivedi, former chairperson,GPCB, in March 1995. The team visitedthe MCL premises at Sayala taluka(Surendranagar district), and metfactory officials and villagers fromSitagarh and Sorimbhada.
Some of the significant findings of theteam are:
The company is operating without thenecessary No Objection Certificate andconsent from the GPCB.
Although the factory started production in January 1991, the consent orderfor non-naphthalene-based productswas issued in January 1995 - four yearslater.
When production commenced, there was no effluent treatment plant.
Till March end 1995, the factory hadnot even applied for hazardous wastesdisposal authorisation from the GPCB. Itappeared that no initiative has beentaken by the factory in this regard.
The treated effluent quality doesnot confirm to the stipulated GPCBstandards.
Air pollution is very significant.
No disaster management plan - Offsite and on site - appears to have beenprepared by the factory. No environment impact statement and environment management plan have beenprepared too.
The team concluded that:
The industrial complex, being locatedin a land-locked area, has no naturalpoint for waste water disposal.
Sayala falls in the semi-arid zonehaving a rocky strata. The factory, theonly one in the area, daily uses 1,700-1,800 cu m of fresh water through 22borewells.
The MCL'S water requirements is veryhigh. Groundwater has already beenover-exploited.
The steadily falling groundwater tableis getting polluted due to chemicaldischarges.
It seems that geological and hydroiogical aspects of the terrain had not beensurveyed carefully by the governmentwhile permitting the MCL to instal itsplants. The rocky area has fissures thatfacilitate permeation of polluted water.
The site is in the catchment area ofBhogavo river, upstream of Nayaka andDholiclhaja reservoirs. There is the possibility of contamination of these reservoirs spelling disastrous consequences.
Even as the expert team recommended that no further expansions ordiversifications be permitted at the site,some new units were inaugurated at thesite in December 1995, in the presenceof none other than Prern Shankar Bhatt,the then GPCB chairman.
Bharat Pathak, director of the GEC,said ruefully, "The GPCB is just an eyewash. It is not adequately empowered tomonitor or act in such cases."