Grant to polluting units in Tirupur opposed

VELLORE: The Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum (VCWF) has opposed the Union Government’s budget allocation of a one-time grant of Rs 200 crore to Tirupur dyeing units to overcome the pollution problem. A resolution to this effect was adopted at a recently held executive committee meeting.According to K A Sankarasivam and P S Subramanian, president and honorary secretary of the forum respectively, the government’s move was against the directions of the Supreme Court which insisted on ‘polluters to pay’ and ‘precautionary principles’ established in the forum’s writ 914 of 1991.“Such a grant to polluting industries also violated article 48A of the Constitution of India,’’ they argued. Instead of directing the polluting industries to take responsibility to bring back the ecology to its originality at their cost, the government’s gesture of helping them amounted to violation of the above article by the government itself, they added.They pointed out that the proposed grant would make the tax payers money being spent on unproductive purposes and urged the political parties to oppose the grant by not allowing the Finance Bill passed.The forum has also opposed the TN government to grant its share of 15 per cent in the setting up of common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) for achieving the zero discharge liquid in the treatment of effluents by the dyeing and bleaching units in Tirupur.``This is a clear disobedience of the orders of the Supreme Court and the orders of the Green Bench of the Madras High Court in Noyyal River ayacutdar’s case as reported in Law Weekly page 275 Madras High Court, 1997 and Law Weekly page 1 Supreme Court, 2010”, they noted.Recalling the order of the Supreme Court given in the case of Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum Vs Union of India and others in 1996, which had mentioned that cases should be decided `keeping in mind’ the apex court’s directions, the forum has contended that the Madras HC had passed most of its orders in many of petitions filed from 1996 till today in favour of the polluting units, that had worsened the situation in the State.While many places have been declared as critically polluted, Vellore in particular had been ranked as eighth among the top 10 `alarmingly polluted’ places in India.The forum has appealed to the apex court to call for all the records relating to environmental matters from the Madras High Court from 1996 and pursue them.