State on mission to cut industrial pollution: Ministers

COIMBATORE: The state government is on a mission to create ‘green’ Tamil Nadu by reducing industrial pollution, said Minister for Environment and Climate Change Siva V Meyyanathan and Minister for Housing and Urban Development S Muthusamy.

Addressing reporters after inspecting zero liquid discharge (ZLD) plants at various industrial units on the SIPCOT premises in Perundurai in Erode, on Tuesday, the Ministers said, “Efforts have been taken to establish a common effluent treatment plant (CETP) at a cost of Rs 40 crore with a capacity to process 20 lakh litres of effluents in SIPCOT. So far, the industrial units were buying water from outside and not using groundwater. Also, 63,000 tonnes of sludge generated by industries here would be taken to a recycling plant in Ramanathapuram within a stipulated time.”

Stating that monitoring would be done to ensure industries discharge effluents after processing, the Ministers said various measures have been taken to ensure people are not affected by industries in SIPCOT industrial estate.

On a mission to create green Tamil Nadu, Meyyanathan and Muthusamy said various awareness activities were organised on environment and climate change. “Because of such sensitisation drives conducted among people, the air pollution level has reduced significantly across Tamil Nadu during Deepavali. Particularly, the air pollution has dipped by 40 per cent in Chennai alone as compared to last year,” they said.

The Ministers were accompanied by Erode District Collector Raja Gopal Sunkara and Rajya Sabha MP ‘Anthiyur’ P Selvaraj.