Fourteen-year-old Raju plays marbles with his friends on a roadside at Jharia in this coal mining city while trucks travel past them showering fly ash being carried uncovered, exposing them to pollution.
The boy is hardly aware of the health hazard the fly ash poses, but Dhanbad residents are aware of it though they are helpless in the face of open flouting of rules requiring companies to transport coal and fly ash covered in tarpaulin.
Coal industries and washeries have been served notices by the Jharkhand Pollution Control Board asking them to abide by the Air Pollution Control Act which calls for industrial wastes to be transported by trucks covered in tarpaulin. The issue has reached the Jharkhand High Court which has asked the Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JS-PCB) to submit a status report on the steps being taken to curb pollution.
"Indeed! It s a very serious issue and we will place it before the high court. We have taken measures like closing some polluted units, but they got a court order to reopen their units," JS-PCB Chairman Mani Shankar, who himself inspected the "polluted areas" in Dhanbad in June, told PTI in Ranchi.
Shankar said that the JS-PCB had recently served notices to public and private companies against uncovered transportation of coal and fly ash. The Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) and Maithon Power Limited (MPL) were served notices after spot inspections and asked them to meet the norms by August 21, failing which "we will take action like ordering closure of their units". Shankar said, "Unless the industries follow the norms, the moratorium against pollution-related matters imposed by the Union Environment Ministry in Nirsa and parts of Baghmara and Jharia blocks in Dhanbad will continue, incurring losses.
A senior BCCL official, however, refused to comment on the charges even as the public sector has obtained a stay on the JS-PCB s closure order of its three coal washeries in connection with pollution. Dinesh Prasad Singh, the JS-PCB s Dhanbad Regional Officer, said that coal dumpers of industries allegedly continued transportation of coal uncovered.
"Even the MPL s pond, which is dumped with fly ash, is leaking into the Barakar River. The plants discharged water is also flowing into Maithon Dam, the main source of drinking for 12 lakh people in Dhanbad, Singh said. "The MPL is also facing charges of transporting uncovered fly ash through market and residential areas to dump in coal mines. We have served notices to them and now actions are being initiated at state headquarters level," Singh said.
The MPL, however, denied the charge: "After getting the notice from the PS-PCB, the management has already directed contractors transporting fly ash to ensure hundred per cent covered trucks and the same was maintained," MPL s Chief Public Relation Officer Abhishek Mani said. "On discharge of the plant s water into Maithon Dam, Mani claimed, "the JS-PCB team has inspected the spot and found no trace of leakage."
The JS-PCB has also slapped notice to Tenughat Thermal Power Station for polluting Tenughat Dam and surrounding farmland, Singh said, adding the power station was directed to explain by August 16. When contacted, the authorities at the power station denied the charges of JS-PCB and claimed that fly ash of plant was being dumped only in their plant premises.
The JS-PCB has already served notices to 41 mines of BCCL and SAIL's Chasnala unit in connection with violating pollution control norms. Cracking down on crusher units, as many as 45 units in Baliapur block of Dhanbad were forced to close operation for violating guidelines.
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