The 7th Meeting of the River Rejuvenation Committee (RRC) constituted by Govt. of Punjab in compliance of directions of National Green Tribunal (NGT) held under the Chairmanship of Mr. Rakesh Verma, IAS, Principal Secretary, Department of Science, Technology and Environment, Govt. of Punjab on 10.09.19 at Chandigarh.
The committee reviewed the progress of implementation of Action Plans for Clean River Sutlej, Beas & Ghaggar prepared by Department of Environment in compliance of NGT directions.
The progress for the month of August, 2019 w.r.t monitoring of water quality of rivers, functioning of various Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs), Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs), Effluent Treatment Plants (ETPs) installed in Industries, reuse of treated wastewater, rural treatment facilities etc reviewed by the Committee. The progress for setting up of new STPs, CETPs, ETPs for dairy waste installation of online continuous monitoring stations & CCTVs for STPs and industrial units was also reviewed.
While reviewing the status of compliance of each STP, the committee directed the all the STP operating agencies/departments to ensure compliance to the prescribed norms, failing which environmental compensation on ‘Polluter Pay Principle’ shall be imposed.
PPCB was also directed to ensure monitoring of 10 industrial units located in the catchment area of Budha Nallah every month through a third party and expedite for setting up of 3 CETPs at Ludhiana & two CETPs at Jalandhar as per timelines provided in the Action Plans.
PSCST was directed to expedite the development of technology for low cost censor to monitor water quality with the involvement of IIT Ropar and setting up of integrated dashboard for environmental compliances using online real time monitoring systems.