The 6th Meeting of NGT Monitoring Committee held on 20.08.19 at Chandigarh under the Chairmanship of Hon’ble Justice Pritam Pal, Former Judge, Punjab & Haryana High Court to review progress of implementation of Action Plans for Clean River Sutlej, Beas & Ghaggar prepared by Department of Environment in compliance of NGT directions. The meeting was attended senior officers of all the relevant departments/agencies. The progress of the Action Plans for the month of July, 2019 reviewed by the Committee w.r.t water quality of rivers, functioning of various Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) located in the catchment area, Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs), Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) installed in Industries and various other development works.
Mr. Rakesh Verma, IAS, Principal Secretary, Science, Technology and Environment, Govt. of Punjab made a detailed presentation on the various issues and way forward for abatement of Pollution of Buddha Nallah. The committee also reviewed the progress for setting up of new STPs, CETPs, ETPs for dairy waste & treatment facilities in villages, reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation & other purposes, installation of online continuous monitoring stations & CCTVs for STPs and industrial units. Action taken on decisions/recommendation of field visits of the Committee by the concerned departments were also reviewed.
PPCB was also directed to expedite for setting up of 3 CETPs at Ludhiana for textile dyeing units, conduct regular inspections of water polluting industries, strengthen its field level staff and organize training & capacity building activities for all the concerned officers on various aspects of water pollution with involvement of expert agencies such as CPCB, NEERI, etc. All the departments were directed by the committee to adhere to the timelines of the Action Plans.