The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-National Environmental Engineering Institute (CSIR-NEERI) has carried out a examine with respect to air air pollution brought on by stone crushing items in Tamil Nadu and concluded that there is no such thing as a have to prescribe any distance criteria between two items, Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram advised the Madras High Court on Monday.
Appearing earlier than Acting Chief Justice T. Raja and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, the A-G stated, CSIR-NEERI had prescribed a security distance of 500 metres solely between the stone crushing items and nationwide/State highways, inhabited websites, instructional establishments, public workplaces, locations of spiritual significance and so forth in order to keep away from the affect of mud emission.
The knowledgeable physique had, in reality, really useful institution of the stone crushing items in clusters, Mr. Shunmugasundaram stated and urged the court docket to vacate a keep imposed in September 2019 on the operation of Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board’s July 31, 2019 notification which relaxed the 2004 requirement of sustaining a distance of 1 kilometre between stone crushing items.
However, senior counsel T. Mohan, representing public curiosity litigation petitioner E.V. Sampath, vehemently opposed the plea to vacate the keep in operation for the final three years and contended that CSIR-NEERI’s report was basically flawed. Following his opposition to the request made by the State, the judges determined to listen to the case in element on April 25.
In his submissions, the A-G stated, there have been round 2,800 stone crushing items in the State they usually produce round 1.60 crore tonnes of blue metallic jelly each month. Further, 406 of these stone crushing items had been able to producing Manufactured Sand (M-Sand) too and subsequently, a number of infrastructure tasks had suffered a success as a result of keep granted in 2019, he stated.
To discover a scientific answer to the issue, the State authorities on August 11, 2021 requested CSIR-NEERI to conduct a examine and submit a report. Accordingly, the knowledgeable physique studied the operations of 57 crushing items at Tirusulam in Chengalpattu district for coastal space monitoring and 27 items at Kodangipalayam in Tiruppur district for inland space monitoring.
Ambient air high quality survey was carried out in 21 places in Tirusulam and 30 places in Kodangipalayam by partaking excessive quantity samplers. The stage of Total Suspended Particulate Matter, Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter and Particulate Matter had been studied at totally different distances from the supply of air pollution.
After the examine, CSIR-NEERI submitted a report titled ‘Assessment of Dust Emissions from Stone Crushing Industries and Distance Criteria in the State of Tamil Nadu’ in June 2022. The report acknowledged that it was advisable for the stone crushing items to operate in clusters shut to one another and that there was no necessity to prescribe any distance norm.
The report additionally really useful measures akin to rising of evergreen timber together with Ashoka, Neem and Tamarind across the crushing items; following good home protecting practices akin to spraying water recurrently to stop unfold of mud particles and protecting of fantastic mud with tarpauline throughout storage, the A-G stated and requested the court docket to vacate the keep.
