NEW DELHI: A day after the Supreme Court asked the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to take action against industrial units polluting Ganga, the Tribunal has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to upload on its website the criteria for classification of industries.
Polluting industries are categorised into three categories--red, orange and green keeping in view their pollution potential. A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar, also directed CPCB to place inspection reports on its website so that they become accessible to all the industries which have been named in the list.
"We direct the CPCB to place on its website the criteria for terming the industries as 'seriously polluting industry' or are 'not seriously polluting industry' and for categorising them into as red, green or orange category as the case may be," the bench said.
The Tribunal also directed the counsel appearing for West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to place on their respective websites the names of industries which are discharging their effluents into the Ganga or its tributaries.
Earlier, taking a stern view on release of effluents into the Ganga, the Tribunal had directed Simbhaoli Sugar Mills to pay a compensation of Rs 5 crore for "intentionally avoiding to discharge their social corporate responsibility" and polluting the river.
The bench was hearing a petition filed by UP resident Krishan Kant Singh who contended that the stretch of Ganga from Garmukteshwar to Narora was being polluted due to discharge of highly toxic and harmful effluents by sugar mills as well as dairy firms.