Nearly 2,800 or 90 per cent of critically polluting industrial units have installed 24X7 monitoring devices to check pollution. This comes after the Environment Ministry made it mandatory for the factories to abide by the respective green norms. This was informed by Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday, at a gathering of Paryavaran Suraksha Manch, under the trade union organisation of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh.
“Out of the 3,200 big units across the country, 2,800 have already put up those devices. We are monitoring pollution sitting here in the Environment Ministry and the Central Pollution Control Board,” he said, adding that there are 17 critically polluting industries, that have been asked to install 24X7 monitoring devices at points where their waste water comes out.
He further said out of nearly 700 industries on the banks of Ganga, around 500 have already installed monitoring devices.
Pointing towards near extinction of vultures, Javadekar said the species were the best scavengers. But due to extensive use of a particular drug, called diclofenac, administered to livestocks, they are hardlty seen now. The country once had 4 crore vultures. Now only 40,000 might have been left. The minister mentioned of captive vulture breeding centre at Haryana, which will be released in the wild next month.
The minister also expressed concern over the issue of rising temperature and increasing carbon emission. “Developed countries have polluted through their industries during the entire 19th and 20th century. Nobody thought of environment, they only thought about profit. If today one degree temperature rise has happened, that is because of the pollution done by the developed countries in the last 150 years,” he said.
The minister said that during the recently-held Paris climate change conference, it was decided that developed countries will do more to curb carbon emissions while the developing countries will walk the sustainable development path.