KSPCB short staffed to monitor pollution

BANGALORE: Though pollution levels are increasing at an alarming rate, there are only 127 technical officers in the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) to monitor and check pollution  caused by over 60,000 registered industries and many more unregistered industries in the state.According to official sources, there are only three technical officers in the KSPCB to monitor over 104 mines, 52 stock yards and many other industries including sugar and steel industries in Bellary district and there are only three technical officers in Mysore district to monitor over 1,000 industries. The situation is not different in the remaining districts and in some districts one officer is entrusted the responsibility of monitoring more than 500 industries, which is practically impossible. According to environmentalist A N Yellappa Reddy, many industries including electro-plating industries, distillaries Bio-technology and sugar industries are releasing effluents without treating them as prescribed. This has led to the genetic accumulation of toxic substances leading to various non contagious diseases including kidney diseases and mental retardation and it takes generations to cleanse genetic pollution. The KSPCB has not issued closure notices to Gemini industries though it was found releasing untreated effluents into the atmosphere.Apart from more than 60,000 industries that are registered with the KSPCB, many industries are operating without getting the necessary approvals including consent for establishment or consent for operation from the KSPCB though they are supposed to obtain them. According to the data obtained from the Commerce and Industries Department, there are over 4.2 lakh micro, small and medium industries and more than 1,000 large scale industries in the state. After the High Court directed the KSPCB to monitor an additional 115 categories of industries with the 118 categories it is monitoring since 1992, more than 30 per cent of the industries fall under the scanner of the KSPCB. Neither the KSPCB or the Commerce and Industries Department has any mechanism to segregate the industries that have not complied with the pollution control regulations. Karnataka State Pollution Control Board Chairman A S Sadashivaiah said, the High Court had stayed our efforts to recruit technical officers from the past four years. We recently got the stay vacated and we are recruiting 60 engineers and many ground staff very soon. With the existing staff we are doing everything possible to check pollution and we are focussing on red and orange category industries as these are the most polluting industries.According to environmentalist Yellappa Reddy, KSPCB did not present its case properly to get stay vacated from the past four years.