Simbhaoli Sugars, which was directed by the National Green Tribunal last week to pay ₹5 crore as compensation for polluting the Ganga, has decided to fight the order. The NGT also cracked the whip on Gopalji Milk Food and asked it to pay ₹25 lakh.
Speaking to BusinessLine , Sanjay Tapriya, Chief Financial Officer, Simbhaoli Sugars, said that the company is taking legal advice. .
The Tribunal had ordered Simbhaoli Sugar Mills to compensate for the environmental damage caused by the unit with discharge of untreated effluents at Garhmukteswar, near Ghaziabad. Gopalji Milk has received lesser flak since it did not cause pollution of “serious gravity.”
This order comes in the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mission Clean Ganga.
The Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Water Resources have also started deliberating on the actions to be taken against polluting industries.
Recently, the Supreme Court had also pulled up the Government on lack of firm modus operandi to achieve a clean Ganga. The Simbhaoli Sugar, which was established in 1933 and Distillery, established in 1943, have, in fact, been violating environmental laws ever since 1974, the order notes. However, the company may well take legal measures against this order by the Tribunal.
Tapriya said that the company has been complying with environmental requirements. However, the order said that the unit is “responsible for causing great environmental pollution of 66 water bodies including Phuldera drain, the Syana Escape canal, the Ganga and even the groundwater in and around the area of this industrial unit.”
The legal bench, in fact, has even pulled up the Central Pollution Control Board and it’s State counterparts. “Why despite persistent and admitted defaults since the year 2010, consents had been renewed by the said Board,” the order asked. It added, “The statutory Boards empowered to prevent and control pollution have not performed their statutory duties .”