Korattur residents protest against polluting industries in Ambattur

CHENNAI: Korattur residents protested in front of Ambattur pollution control board office on Tuesday demanding a probe into environmental violations by private industries.
Last week, the board submitted a report before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) stating that Aavin was polluting the Korattur lake by releasing untreated sewage and industrial waste into storm water canals, which are meant to dispose of only excess rainwater into the lake.
S Sekaran from Korattur People's Welfare and Awareness Trust, who filed the NGT case, said that the pollution board has given a clean chit to private industries though they have already submitted evidence (photos and videos) before the tribunal showing violations by several industries in Ambattur.
"The recent report presents an image as if Aavin alone is the reason for this problem. The pollution board officials are seeing Aavin as a soft target as it is a government institution and has indirectly allowed private polluters to go scot-free. We suspect large-scale corruption behind this," he said.
Rejecting this, TNPCB officials in response said that they have issued directions to polluting industries and some of them fixed it fearing follow-up action.
But several residents say that there is no formal word on the amount collected from some of the polluting industries a few years ago for polluting the lake. Official documents suggest that the board collected 1.25 crore as compensation from violators for damaging the environment.
"Ideally, this amount should have been used to strengthen the Korattur lake bund, remove water hyacinth, weeds and renovate the waterbody or at least remove the contaminated soil. But when we met the authorities and sought these details, they did not share any of them.
"More recently, another 1.2 crore was collected from more polluters," said V Dilli Babu, another resident-activist from Korattur.
The petitioners have now once again collected fresh evidence suggesting release of industrial effluent into canals leading to the lake. They have planned to submit it before the tribunal, which will be hearing the case again on April 18.