The Shreemettalick is the most-polluting plant in Keonjhar district .This was observed by the House Committe on Environment during its spot visit programme to the districts of Angul, Keonjhar and Jajpur from October 18 to 20.
The panel looked into the issue of pollution by industries by discharging effluents into different water bodies and agricultural lands.
Accordingly, after Angul, the committee led by its Chairman, Keonjhar MLA and Chief Whip of BJP Legislature party, Mohan Charan Majhi had visited Keonjhar on October 19 and expressed its dissatisfaction after seeing very disturbing environmental condition in the Shreemetalick plant situated at Rugudi near Barbil.
The committee also asked Prashanta Kumar Kar, Regional Pollution Control Officer, who was escorting the team, to initiate necessary legal proceedings against the polluting plant if it did not comply with the conditions within the specified period as per laws.
But Raman Sharma, director of Shreemettalick plant, was not ready the buy the story. When contacted to know his views on the remarks of the Assembly panel, he said his plant was very clean.
The panel also visited Aryan Steel plant and Jindal Steel and Power Plant ( JSPL), Keonjhar.
Source revealed that earlier, a team led by Maheswar Sahoo of BJP had raised some allegations against JSPL for polluting the Sona river.
However, Senior GM ( Corporate affairs and Communication ) of Ariya Steel Parvesh Pandey revealed that they will comply with the conditions put up by the committe to dig a big reservoir to deposit the effluent water for treatment instead of directly discharging the effluents into river, within three months.
Besides,Mohan Majhi, the other members of the commitee are Braja Kishore Pradhan, Nauri Naik, Subash Chandra Behera, Dr CS Razen Ekka, Prakash Soren and Aditya Majhi.