The Southern Bench of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has raised doubts on a pesticide and insecticide unit in Tiruvallur district that may have been operating without necessary approvals.
A petition filed by Rajesh Khanna alleged that the factory had been operating without consent from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) and that it caused pollution.
As per reports filed by the TNPCB before the tribunal, the pesticide company had applied for Consent to Operate (CTO) on March 12 and subsequently, the consent was given after inspection. “However, it is said that the trade effluent generated from wet scrubber is disposed of into the solar evaporation pan which had the capacity to discharge three litres daily. This raises a doubt that the unit might have been in operation even before obtaining the Consent to Operate,” the Bench observed.
The Bench said in one of the product pamphlets of the unit, the manufacturing date was printed as December 2022 and the expiry date as November 2024.
“If the unit was not in operation prior to the issuance of the Consent to Operate in March 2023, how was the production done and labelled,” the Bench said in its order on August 22. It directed the unit to file its response. The TNPCB has been asked to verify the observations.
