Environment protection: Business community wary of increased penalties

Hyderabad SITE representatives fear ministers trying to exact favours through new laws.

HYDERABAD: With a five-fold increase in the penalty for violators of the new provincial environment law, industries in Hyderabad have been given a subtle warning to stop the discharge of effluents in the waterways. However, the alert is being viewed by many as a means to exact pecuniary favours from the business community.

The community's representatives, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to The Express Tribune, based their argument on the notion that the SITE area has been singled out for environmental action in Hyderabad. At a meeting on Friday evening, chaired by the provincial environment and industries ministers, Sikandar Mandhro and Muhammad Ali Malkani, the SITE Association's representatives were asked to establish in-house effluent treatment plants in each industrial unit.

The meeting was briefed on a range of Hyderabad's environmental issues such as garbage dumping and burning in residential areas, hospital waste, burning of old batteries, high rises and other polluters of the waterways. The ministers, however, chose the industries for the implementation first.

Mandhro said that the release of untreated toxic waste water in the Fuleli canal - the irrigation and water source for Hyderabad, Tando Muhammad Khan and Badin districts - was exposing humans to health hazards and also damaging agricultural produce. "If you drop a single spoon of mercury in a 25-acre fish pond, it is enough to kill all the aquatic creatures."

However, SITE's managing director Nazar Muhammad Bozdar disputed the claim by saying that the SITE area was not the only one to be blamed for the pollution. "The SITE area only has one pipeline of 12-inch diameter which empties into the canal. Our share [of effluent release] is hardly two to three per cent [of the total]," he told the meeting.

Bozdar and the vice-president of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Ziauddin, pointed out that municipal and domestic waste, slaughter houses, bangle industries, Ajrak makers and other small industries together dump far more solid and liquid waste directly and indirectly into the canal. "We told the ministers that they should simultaneously address all sources of pollution. Reducing five per cent of effluent discharge and that too by suddenly burdening the industrialists is not fair," Ziauddin told The Express Tribune.

The minister also rejected a proposal from the HCCI and SITE association that the government should build an effluent treatment plant in Hyderabad SITE similar to those in Karachi and Kotri SITE areas. The minister not only rejected their verbal recommendations, he even went on to claim that the government had never built any treatment plant in the SITE areas. "As per the land allotment agreement [for SITE industries], emission and effluent have been controlled locally [within the industry]," Mandhro said.

Allegations

A day before the ministers visited Hyderabad, an office-bearer of the SITE Association received a call from one of them, allegedly asking for contribution of funds towards his ministry. "He said the SEPA and SITE were facing acute shortage of funds due to which they were not able to address many issues. He requested to contribute funds," a representative of the community, who did not want to be named, told The Express Tribune.

The source referred to both the Rs5 million penalty and the Sindh Sustainable Development Fund set up under Section 8 of the Sindh Environment Protection Act, 2014. While the penalty, which has been increased from Rs1 million to Rs5 million, can be imposed after trial and conviction by the environmental protection tribunal, the law has legalised collection of funds.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2015.