NEW DELHI, Feb 24:
About 2,800 or nearly 90 per cent of critically polluting industrial units have installed 24X7 monitoring devices to check pollution after the government took a firm stand that factories can only function if they adhere to green norms, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar today said.
“There are 17 critically polluting industries. We asked them to install 24X7 monitoring devices at points where their waste water comes out. Out of the 3,200 big units across the country, 2,800 have already put up those devices. We are monitoring pollution sitting here in the Environment Ministry and the Central Pollution Control Board.
“…The Narendra Modi-led government has made industries understand that they can only run by undertaking environment friendly policies which will be monitored 24X7. This was a big victory,” Javadekar said at a gathering of Paryavaran Suraksha Manch of RSS-affiliated trade union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
He said out of nearly 700 industries on the banks of Ganga, around 500 have already installed monitoring devices.
Hitting out at the erstwhile UPA government, Javadekar said environment clearance for new factories was seldom granted during its tenure and alleged there was a “policy of give and take”.
“The speciality of the UPA government was that permission was never granted. A sort of toll gate had been created. First give something, then take away permission. We (NDA) said we will give permission very easily but afterward there would be 24X7 monitoring,” Javadekar said, adding the government is slowly making the standards stricter.
On climate change, Javadekar blamed the developed countries for the increase in global temperatures and said it was because of their carbon emissions for the last 150 years that climate change events like untimely rains and floods are taking place now.
“Developed countries have polluted through their industries during the entire 19th and 20th century. Nobody thought of environment, they only thought about profit. If today one degree temperature rise has happened, that is because of the pollution done by the developed countries in the last 150 years,” he said.
Javadekar said during the recently-held Paris climate change conference, it was decided that developed countries will do more to curb carbon emissions while the developing countries will walk the sustainable development path.
“We have pledged that development will be done while protecting the environment. But the problem of climate change which we are facing today, India is not responsible for that… We are now adopting a model of sustainable development which was not adopted by developed nations when they were at our stage,” he said.
He said vultures which were the best scavengers have nearly disappeared today due to a particular drug, named diclofenac, which was administered to livestocks.
“Vultures were the best scavengers. But they are not visible now. Diclofenac medicine was introduced and given to animals which the vultures fed on. India had 4 crore vultures. Now only 40,000 might have been left. We are now breeding them at a centre in Haryana and will release them this month,” he said. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel