Udupi: All is not well at UPCL site
Bellevision Media Network
Udupi, 14 April 2011: The state government, especially the Pollution Control Board, has taken serious note of the fly ash pollution from the UPCL project site. The pollution control department sent two of its senior offcials to the site on Tuesday to collect information on the pollution control measures adopted by the UPCL.
Senior officials Ravichandra and Bhaskar from the Polltuion Control Board visited the site. The team visited surrounding villages of UPCL like Nandikur, Saje, Kolachur, Santhur, Mudirangady and took samples of well water, of contaminated water collected from paddy fields and also spoke to the locals bearing the brunt of the flyash menace.
The offials noticed salt water leakages outside the plant, and took senior enviornmental officers of UPCL, Parasuram and Srinivas Reddy, to task for the lapse. This leakage from UPCL plant was obiviously seeping into houses in the surrounding villages Experts from NIT-K Surathkal and Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) are also expected to visit the plant shortly .
District minister V S Acharya has said there is no question of closing down the UPCL plant at Yellur. He criticised the KRRS for their lack of understanding of the power situation in the state. He said he did not find any environmental violation during his visit to the plant.
- TNN
Comments on this Article | |
Philip Mudartha, Qatar | Thu, April-14-2011, 11:45 |
Dr. VS must restrain from casting himself as judge and jury of UPCL s compliance with EPA limits. He must instead focus on updating legal frameworks to ensure environment protection, environment justice and promote advanced studies and research in environment engineering. The latter is his duty as minister for higher education. The enforcement of existing statutes must be left to the PCB officers. He would serve us better if his government would not appoint one of their ilk to be chairman of state PCB. | |
Joe Dsouza, Mangalore | Thu, April-14-2011, 11:03 |
Politicians are not the experts in judging the environmental conditions. But the environmental officers are, because their findings are based on the test results of the samples collected. |