A complaint was filed at the Sea Beach police station here on Friday by the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) against the office-bearers of the Hotel Association of Puri (HAP) and concerned hotel owners for preventing Government officials from sealing of the hotels for polluting water and air in the beach.
According to the FIR filed by OSPCB Regional Officer Hadibandhu Panigrahi, a team comprising a magistrate, police and engineers of power supply department had gone to seal the remaining six hotels located near the Prachi Hotel. Suddenly, owners of concerned hotels and HAP office-bearers and owners of some other hotels allegedly prevented the team from entering into the hotels and resisted the attempt to seal the hotel generator rooms. They made a human fence around the power transformers and at the hotel gates and prevented the team from executing the OSPCB order. So, the team had to return.
The IIC of the police station registered a criminal case against some office-bearers of the association and hotel owners and took up investigation.
On the Tuesday, Panigrahi in the presence of a magistrate and police had disconnected the power supply and sealed the generator rooms of five hotels. The PCB has issued notices to nearly 300 hotels of Puri for polluting the beach and had asked them to instal waste water treatment plants in their hotels before releasing the effluents to the sea or municipal drains.
In the first phase, 12 hotels which did not obtain permission from the OSPCB to operate were listed for closure. While one hotel operator got a stay order from the High Court, the OSPCB team disconnected power connections of five big hotels and their generator rooms were sealed. The five sealed hotels were Camelia, Sea Gull, Haven, Trimurti and Naik Beach Resort.
The remaining six hotels are Chariot Resorts, laxmijyoti, Niladri, Prabhupada, Sona International and Hotel Sreehari were scheduled for closure on Friday. Noted environmentalist Jagannath Bastia said most of the hotels along the beach are releasing untreated waste water into the sea. Most of them do not have consent from the OSPCB to operate.