The Federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Jharkhand Small Industries Association today submitted a memorandum to the Chairman, Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB), Mani Shankar demanding removal of hurdles created by the board.
Pinning his hope on the newly appointed Chairman, president FJCCI, Ranjit Kumar Tibrewal said, “The board need to find out that the real culprits responsible for polluting the environment,” and added “bigger contributors not only flout norms openly but also escape punishments.”
The FJCCI demanded to make the defunct Environmental Clearance Committee set up by Government of India functional, expediting process of issuing pollution clearance, investigating the irregularities on issuing no clearance certificate to businesses.
The FJCCI and JSIA demanded that if the board fails to issue pollution clearance in 15 days the same should qualify for automatic clearance and the application should be considered valid.
The members also informed the Chairman that NOC consent is issued for only one year as against the applied period of 2 to 5 years and demanded an inquiry into it. Interestingly, the pollution control board charges NOC consent fee for 2 to 5 years but issues consent certificate for only one year.
Significantly, Shankar promised to look into their demands and said, “We will discuss the issues in tomorrow’s meeting of the board,” adding “we are helpless on guidelines issued by courts.”
Meanwhile, the JSPCB is holding its meeting tomorrow, first in past six months, at the board’s headquarter.
JSIA president, Arun Khemka represented the association in the meeting. The meeting was attended by businessmen and industrialists from Ranchi, Ramgarh, Dhanbad, Bokaro and other parts of Jharkhand.