ITANAGAR, 30 Jul: Itanagar Capital Region (ICR) Deputy Commissioner Talo Potom on Saturday asked the business establishments to install effluent treatment plants (ETP) or sewage treatment plants (STP) at the earliest.
Addressing a meeting with owners and representatives of hotels, automobile workshops, hospitals, etc, which were found to be operating without installation of ETP, in violation of Sections 25/26 of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, the DC said that “failing to install ETP or STP will invite additional environmental compensation charges.”
“The ETPs have to be installed at any cost,” the DC said, and added that “a drive for installation process will be carried out in a phased manner with all the big establishments being considered in the first phase.”
Arunachal Pradesh State Pollution Control Board Member Secretary T Riba informed that notices were served by the board to various business establishments, “in compliance with the order
of the National Green Tribunal to install ETP/STP in their respective establishments by 6 July,” and said that “failing to install sewage treatment plant will continue to invite environmental compensation penalties.”
He said that waste generated from such establishments “are running down to rivers directly, without being treated, polluting the rivers, especially the Dikrong, the Senki and the Pachin rivers.”
The owners and representatives of hotels, automobile workshops, hospitals, etc, requested the district administration and the pollution control board to “regulate the cost of sewerage treatment plant installation charges.”
They also sought “sufficient time for installation of STP, that too, after proper survey of requirement for each establishment.”
Representatives of the Arunachal Chamber of Commerce & Industries requested the pollution control board to “first carry out awareness on the need for installation of STPs.”
Among others, SDO Sangeeta Yirang and IMC Assistant Commissioner Datum Gadi attended the meeting. (DIPRO)
