Residents oppose fresh projects

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Local residents and green activists are pressing for a fresh moratorium on new industrial projects in the critically polluted areas of Eloor-Edayar and Ambal-amugal in Greater Kochi.

Though the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) had lifted the moratorium announced for new industrial projects in these areas in 2011, local residents and environmental experts now demand a fresh moratorium citing lack of qualitative improvement in the condition of air, soil and water in the area.

According to environmental experts and green activists, the MoEF lifted the moratorium slapped in January 2010 based on “fabricated recommendations” of the state Pollution Cont-rol Board.

The PCB had reported that following pollution mitigation measures, the quality of soil, water and air had registered a considerable improvement.

Demanding the re-imposition of the moratorium, Purushan Eloor, activist of Periyar Malineekarana Virudha Samithi said, “None of the studies has shown any qualitative imp-rovement in the condition of the soil, air and water in the industrial clusters in the Greater Kochi area, esp-ecially in the Eloor –Edayar belt.

Even the latest study report submitted to the high court by the National Institute of Interd-isciplinary Science and Technol-ogy confirmed dangerous percentages of endosulfan, DDT and benzene hexachloride in samples collected from Periyar.”

Earlier, a high court division bench had asked the NIIST to submit a report on the quality of water collected from Periyar. The samples were taken in the presence of the advocate’s commission appointed by HC.

Another study conducted by the Kerala State Council for Science and Technology and Environment also sho-wed no mitigation in the pollution levels in Periyar and nearby areas.

The School of Industrial Fisher-ies at the Cochin Univers-ity of Science and Techno-logy also conducted a study which revealed that as per the Indian Council of Med-ical Research standards, the area was highly polluted and water could not be used for domestic purposes.