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Virendra Pandit

Ahmedabad, March 14 Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) has served closure notices to 22 companies in Bharuch district to down shutters of their manufacturing facilities for allegedly violating the pollution control norms.

The companies include pharmaceutical majors such as Cadila Pharmaceutical Ltd, Wokhardt Ltd, Sun Pharma Ltd, textile units such as Narendra Textile Ltd, and chemicals majors such as Meghmani Organics Ltd, J.B. Chemicals and Amsal Chemicals Ltd, GPCB sources told Business Line here.

The notices were served during the last few days and different units have been given different deadlines for closure.

These 22 plants are among the 600-odd manufacturing units in the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation industrial estate at Ankleshwar in Bharuch district.

They constitute one of the country’s most important chemical industry clusters in close proximity to the up-and-coming chemicals-based SEZ.

These industries have been issued closure notices for having a higher level of chemical oxygen demand (COD) in their effluent discharge facilities. The units were earlier served show-cause notices in this regard.

According to a Cadila spokesman, his company complied with the GPCB norms by the deadline given last month. A Meghmani source said the plant is running as usual. GPCB has taken the latest action on the basis of the report submitted by the Bharuch Eco-Aqua Infrastructure Ltd (BEAIL) which studied the situation.

This time, it’s mostly the large companies that have been ordered closure. Some of these companies were ordered closure more than twice in the past.

The GPCB official said many companies had increased their production without a corresponding action on the pollution front. This made effluent discharge quantities exceed acceptable limits. Other norms were also violated in different degrees by various companies.

More Stories on : Pollution | Gujarat

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Closure notice to 22 Gujarat cos for violating pollution norms

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