Last Updated on January 24, 2024 by The Health Master
The bulk drug firms located in Jeedimetla, Balanagar and Patanchereru areas on the outskirts of Hyderabad have been told to deposit 0.5 per cent of their turnover as corpus fund to Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB).
The PCB officials will utilise the fund to restore the environment destroyed by the bulk drug manufacturing companies in and around Hyderabad.
In this regard, recently K. Prabhakar Reddy, Member of Parliament from Medak district met with Rajeev Sharma, chairman of TSPCB and sought his intervention and urged him to immediately issue notices to all the bulk drug manufacturing companies in Patancheru and elsewhere in the state.
This is to adhere to the verdict of National Green Tribunal (NGT) which directed the bulk drug companies to deposit 0.5 per cent of their turnover towards restoring the environment.
“We all know the bulk drug firms in Patancheru and Jeedimetla region have created havoc and destroyed land, water and filled the surrounding clean air with filthy unbearable smell and smoke all these years.
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In spite of a ban on expansions of pharma manufacturing firms by the Supreme Court in and around Hyderabad for more than 19-20 years since 1996 to 2015, the companies once again started increasing their bulk manufacturing as the ban on expansion is lifted 5 years back and causing environmental pollution.
Though many firms are saying that they have installed zero liquid discharge equipment and sending their excess polluted water to treatment plants, the steps they are taking to contain pollution is meagre and ineffective and resorting stealthy ways of disbursing the chemical waste into deep pits or releasing into open drains.
In view of the above, we feel the PCB must take stern action against such companies and urged chairman of TSPCB to issue notices to all the bulk drug firms to deposit 0.5 per cent of their turnover to PCB as corpus fund to restore the environment,” informed the Medak MP.
In fact in 2017, the NGT had instructed the bulk rug manufacturing companies to pay 0.5 per cent of their turnover to PCN so that they can design a plan to restore the damaged environment by taking various measures like cleaning the lakes and restoring them, setting up of treatment plants such as Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) and Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) and the funds could also be used to build hospitals to treat patients suffering from various health problems caused by the pollution.
Not only this, the corpus fund deposited by the bulk drug companies could also be used for improving infrastructure facilities in the industrial areas and neighbouring colonies and also take up projects for the conservation of ground water.
The MP informed that they have advised the PCB chief to issue immediate notices to all the bulk drug companies which have flaunted the NGT directive and violating the environmental protection norms and urged him to take strict penal action against the violators.
