MoEF team to visit Hyderabad for pollution check

HYDERABAD: The ministry of environment and forestry will soon send a fact-finding team to assess the impact of the state government's relaxation of a moratorium on industrial activity in the city. The team will assess whether the government's move would add to the pollution levels in the city.

The Telangana government has recently loosened up on a moratorium to allow more factories in the city, alleged people's representatives. However, this move might have to pass an acid test from the MoEF.

Currently, the city has 10 pockets which have been categorised as Industrial Development Areas (IDAs), which house mostly large-scale industries. According to officials of the pollution control board, pollution in these areas is already very high.

"The central government has already identified the city as a critically-polluted area. Now if the state government lifts the moratorium or curb on industrial expansion, the number of industries would go up manifold and worsen the situation in the city," said KP Vivekanand, Telugu Desam Party MLA, Quthbullapur.

He also added that the government was trying to cash in on the city's reputation of being the pharma capital in the country.

"When the government is failing to curb industrial pollution, there is no need for the moratorium to be relaxed. People who are living in these areas complain of breathing and digestive problems," he said.

Even the Telangana State Pollution Control Board's directive to all industries for setting up an air pollution monitoring unit has failed to reap required results, say top officials of the PCB. It was in July last year that CM K Chandrasekhar Rao announced a sprawling pharma city around the Hyderabad metropolitan area.

This area was to be spread over an area of anywhere around 7,000-8,0000 acres. It was also speculated that the area would come up within a year's time.