The National Green Tribunal has ordered notice to a drug manufacturer and the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) on a petition seeking to restrain production of drugs for which no consent has been obtained in Medak district of the State.
The petitioner alleged that the bulk drug manufacturer had been producing drugs for which the company had not obtained valid licences and was letting untreated and partially treated effluents into various water channels. In his petition, K Chidamberum, president of the Citizens Forum For Better Patancheru Constituency said that in 2012, he made a representation to the Chief Justice of the Andhra Pradesh High Court highlighting the plight of villagers in Kazhipalli, Sulthanpur and 15 surrounding villages in the banks of the Nakka Vadu, a rivulet in the Medak district, which was converted into a PIL by the court.
Bulk drug manufacturers, in total disregard of environment norms, had discharged untreated and partially treated effluents into the rivulet, causing widespread pollution. They also built an illegal sump with check dam above the Jillela Vagu and started discharging into that sump.
When this was taken up with the APPCB, the board directed the companies to treat their effluents in a Common Treatment Plant. However, the check dam got breached in April 2012, causing heavy pollution.
Later, the board issued orders for remediation, which too were followed inadequately.
This resulted in several closure orders relying on a 2007 MoEF notification, which imposed a ban on establishment of bulk drug manufacturing companies around 1 km of the industrial areas of Medak, Ranga Reddy, Mahaboobnagar and Nalagonda districts.
Meanwhile, this order of the board was challenged before the appellate authority, in which the petitioner impleaded himself as a party as per the orders of the High Court in the PIL.
Admitting the petition, the Southern Bench ordered notice to respondents returnable by December 4.