Auditors find collieries suffocating Damodar to death

Greater attention of the PMO to rivers and the State Government’s push for including treatment of river Damodar for greater success of ‘Ganga Rejuvenation Programme’ seem to have taken a leaf out of the auditor general’s reality check done in coal fields to an extent.The latest audit report of the Principal Accountant General (PAG) of Jharkhand has nailed unruly collieries, especially those smacking in and around the coal capital of the country Dhanbad.      

The audit report presented before the Assembly after an extensive physical verification of the area came to the conclusion that nine out of ten collieries are indulged into overstepping every single norm set under the Dhanbad Action Plan, made for providing pollution free environment for millions of residents and miners. 

“Scrutiny of records as well as joint physical verification with JSPCB of 10 working collieries revealed that waste water was not treated in nine collieries. These nine collieries also did not install effluent treatment plants and sewerage treatment plants,” said the report for the year ended March 31, 2014.

It went on further to expose the treatment given to Damodar on which bank and near its bed, overburden of mines, rejects of coal washeries and ash of thermal power plants are kept. Ultimately, the residue goes to the river sooner or later, says the PAG after conducting survey at four locations—Telmacho, Domgarh, Jamadoba and Panchet of Dhanbad.

The river along with Subarnarekha is considered lifeline of Jharkhand but is also feared to have reached at a level of extinction due to overburden of the mining belt. It has been rated one of the most polluted rivers of the country having maximum biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) between 2.5 mg/liter and 8.2 mg/liter; way ahead of the required limit 2 mg/liter or less.

The report, at the same time, also rapped Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB) for turning its eyes away. “It was noted that JSPCB did not measure water quality of Damodar river in Dhanbad against ‘Total Coliform Test’ (a bacteriological test) and ‘Free Ammonia Test’ (a test for assessing propagation of aquatic life and fish species), although standard in respect of both parameters were fixed by the CPCB,” read the findings.

The State Government had accepted the findings in November 2014 about not conducting the tests and had provided a ludicrous reply that the BOD was within permissible limit for outdoor bathing during monsoons. Even the input got rejected by the PAG.      

Auditors found that the nine collieries did not install sewerage treatment plants besides leaving the overburden unattended on the river bank. Worrying thing is that the Government then tried to defend the indefensible equating settling ponds and septic tank soak-pits systems alternatives of sewerage treatment plants.

Incidentally, the JSPCB has recently issued directives to all plants, factories and collieries for installation of temper-proof effluent measuring systems. “The latest system would not only provide effluent data on real time basis but also transmit those across the online monitoring cells at JSPCB and CPCB. This would prevent any manipulation in the collection of pollutants,” said a senior official of JSPCB.