Can
we simply wash our hands of?
Simbhaoli
Sugars is one of our oldest, biggest and renowned sugar manufacturers. They
sell sugar with brand name “Trust”. Just days before Dhanteras we got an
unpleasant report – Simbhaoli fined Rs 5 crores by National Green Tribunal for
polluting the Ganges. Rs 5 crores is not a large sum for Simbhaoli. Last week,
in most markets sugar was near Rs3000/ton. So, 17,000 tons of sugar will do. Or
by 2-3 average days’ sales proceed the Simbhaoli Sugars group can gather that
money.
As Dussehra
proverbs go, we could say “Evil shall not prevail”, “Anyay ka ant nyay ka uday”
is accomplished, “the guilty is punished”, and there ends the story. But can we
simply wash our hands of the matter? We cannot, because, many of us are
connected with the whole affair somehow, directly or indirectly.
The court
proceedings reminded us of a 2010 account written by Akash Vashishtha in Mail
Today. To quote from the splendid reporting by Akash: “Black, stinking and
toxic - that's the way villagers of Puth describe the Ganga's water. ...
"The colour ... is black and it stinks ... Several large fish died last
week. And four of our buffaloes were killed after they drank its water
recently," Puth villager Raju said. ... The stretch [of the Ganges, from
Bijnor to Narora] was the first to be declared a Ramsar Site in 2005, having
rich species of freshwater dolphins (Ganges dolphins) and crocodiles ...”. It
was July 2010 and Kirshan Kant Singh and his Social Action for Forest &
Environment (SAFE) moved to the green Tribunal on 2013 with application
number299. An interim order was issued on May 31 this year. What we can
summarise from this is that nothing changed in between 2010 and 2014. What were
governments and their PCB wings doing all this time?
In the interim order we find: “Both the Pollution Control Boards (CPCB and UPPCB) in
their replies pleaded that the Respondent no 7 industry is a polluting industry
and is a persistent defaulter and violated the various directions issued from
time to time.” But we also find the industry’s
pleas: “The Respondent-7 follows all the terms and conditions of the consent
order issued by the PCB for the year 2012and 2013, both for Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) as well as Air
Pollution Control Devices.” How a
persistent defaulter got the consent orders whatever be “conditions” therein? Besides,
do the CPCB and UPPCB have no power whatsoever to stop a ‘persistent
defaulter’? How can a country that is aspiring to be a world industrial
powerhouse can function with such weak and miserable environmental wings! Or do
our statutory authorities like PCBs lack enforcement power? People may wonder
whether the government is serious at all in monitoring, controlling and abating
environmental degradation and disasters.
It
begets another question: will we have to depend on PILs by some citizen
activists or NGOs to defend our rights of fresh air and clean water? K K Singh and his organisation SAFE have been fighting the legal battle concerning this case and many other issue for years. ANd as this is
the season for Diwali and all sorts of crackers, we may remember the sound
pollution limits and orders were based on some famous judgements. If we look at
those from this angle, we may ask ourselves: are we dependent on “judicial
activism” for protecting us from some polluting ‘demons’? And some citizen activists and organisations like K K Singh, SAFE etc? And some IAS officers
like Durga Nagpal who tried to fight valiantly against sand-mafias to save land
from erosion? If the case is so, that we are to depend on some activists,
top-notch officers and judges to keep us and our environment safe, is it not a
misfortune for a democracy?
What
the ISO, the International Standard Organisation people might be thinking now! Simbhaoli
Sugars have ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifications. ISO 14001 is related to
Environmental Management Systems and an ISO 14001 certified company may boast
of having a sound environmental practice. Surely Simbhaoli had regular internal
environmental audits and also external or third party audits and invigilation.
If such a company is found as a ‘persistent defaulter’ by the judges at the
National Green Tribunal, then the ISO 14001 tag surely lose some shine in
public eyes, isn’t it? Whom the board members of any company will rely on if
not the in-house environmental department and the auditors! According to EMS,
persons responsible for specified activities are all documented. What penalty
did those person(s) responsible get?
The
business community has yet another bitter pill. They know how their
organisations, the business chambers, help new entrepreneurs, including guiding
them in getting ISO accreditations. Some chambers do lot more by providing
trainings and other services. A site visit report is in the public domain:
FICCI -M2M Project Facilitating Mechanisms for Advancing Methane Recovery and
Use Projects in India; Assistance Agreement Number: XA-83367101-0. There we see
that a team commissioned by FICCI visited that Simbhaoli site on December 2009.
In that report there is absolutely no talk regarding unsatisfactory operation
of waste treatment units, rather we find the appreciation. If everything was okay
in Dec 2009, how did Akash find an opposite picture on July 2010? Was it a
sudden development? FICCI may talk with the WWF; they have a station at Narora
because of their concern with endangered species like the Gangetic Dolphins.
WWF, or rather the Gangetic dolphins have been facing the industrial pollution
problem for a long time. It is not that the picture suddenly became murky in
2010. This is not a flimsy issue, professional integrity and reputation may be
questioned.
Lastly,
for us who were relieved by this verdict: let us conjecture how we can
‘valorise’ a Gangetic Dolphin or any other creature. How we can measure the
‘loss’ if we lose this endangered species? Can everything be monetised? Secondly,
those fellows (Dolphins are very intelligent and they are mammals like us, so
we may call them fellows) are dwellers of the Ganges from a time much before
the arrival of man. They might be called the son of the soil, or, maybe, daughters
and sons of Ganga. How do we have right of polluting their home by our wastes?
Stern
admonition and Rs 5 crore fine cannot settle all these discomforting
questions.
a version of this was published in Business Economics, 16 - 30 November, 2014
the
author is a chemical engineer and environmentalist
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