The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday pulled up the Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF), Water Resources & Ganga Rejuvenation along with the Uttar Pradesh Government over pollution in the Ganga in Varanasi saying their slogans are contrary to actions. The NGT has asked them to reply by January 27 on who should be held accountable for the increasing pollution in the river in Varanasi.
The observation came after advocate Gaurav Kumar Bansal produced before the court, pictures of bodies floating in the river near Varanasi. He mentioned that corpses of humans and animals were being indiscriminately dumped into the river and the authorities were allegedly not taking any action in this regard.
A Bench headed by NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar said: “It is really very unfortunate that such things are going on. Why don’t you do something about thisIJ”
The green tribunal rejected the claims of the representatives of the Centre and State that local officials are to be blamed for the situation. It asked them to look into the issues and deal with them more expeditiously.
last week, the Bench had directed the Governments of UP and Uttarakhand to identify seriously polluting industries located on the banks of Ganga and apprise it about “quantity and quality” of discharge generated by them in the river.
It had also ordered a joint inspection by a team comprising officials from Central Pollution Control Board, Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board, Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board and a representative from the MoEF at points where tributaries of the Ganga from Uttarakhand and UP meet the main Ganga river.
Earlier, the tribunal had directed the Centre not to release funds for cleaning the river from Gomukh to Kanpur without its nod, chiding the two States for failing to identify the “seriously” polluting locations. In October last, the green court had asked the Centre to name one place where the condition of the river has improved despite thousands of crores being spent.
In several hearings in the past, the Supreme Court had been highly critical of the plans of the Government to restore the river. The apex court repeatedly pointed out that the 1,600-mile river flowing down from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal is full of industrial effluent and untreated sewage and its banks strewn with garbage. It had also directed the NGT to take action against polluting factories and industries operating along the banks of the Ganga.