NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday constituted an environmental assessment committee consisting of two experts from IIT-Madras and an independent scholar to study the pollution in the Palar river caused by untreated tannery effluents and asked the panel to submit a report within six months.
“A committee consisting of two top IIT experts and scholar Nagarajan has been formed to look into the pollution issue,” a lawyer connected to the Tamil Nadu government in the case told TNIE. The judgment copy has not been uploaded on the Supreme Court website till the publication of the story. The court said a decision will be taken regarding further assessment studies after reviewing the first report and adjourned the case for six months.
In an earlier hearing on August 12, the top court had warned the TN authorities over the pollution in the river caused by untreated tannery effluents, urging immediate and effective action.
“Don’t meddle with nature, nature will not spare you,” the bench had said.
The Palar, which passes through Vellore, Ranipet, Tirupattur and other districts, has been severely polluted due to untreated waste being discharged into the river from tanneries. The Vellore Environmental Monitoring Committee had filed the case in the SC seeking an order to close polluting factories and further action to save the waterbody.
After the SC expressed its dissatisfaction over the action initiated by authorities, collectors of Vellore, Ranipet, and Tirupattur appeared in the court on August 11. The chairman of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and an official of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), too, appeared before the SC.