LG Polymers Incident triggers Andhra to come up with Environment Improvement Act to curb pollution

Amaravati: The state government is contemplating to bring in AP Environment Improvement Act to check pollution and safeguard environment, which also imposes hefty penalties for violations.

During a review meeting here on Wednesday, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy stressed on the need to bring a new Act for controlling the pollution levels, particularly dealing with hazardous material, besides safeguarding the environment and imposing heavy penalties and stringent action for violations.

The heavy penalties are to keep violations at bay as the steep hike in liquor prices have brought down the rate of alcohol consumption, the Chief Minister said.

He directed the officials to monitor industrial pollution continuously and make sure the guidelines of Pollution Control Board (PCB) are duly followed. He further asked the officials to work on a real-time basis and take stringent action against those flouting the rules.

The Chief Minister further said that all the industries have to submit a compliance report for a given period and all these reports will be audited by the third party.

He directed the officials of PCB to focus on the empanelled environmental agencies and scrutinise in detail.

In addition to these, the officials were asked to concentrate on the industries in red and orange zones and upload their data along with detailed reports online on a public domain with real-time interface.

The Chief Minister told the officials to lay focus on the proper alert system during emergency situations and prepare a Standard Operating Procedure over the alert management.

In regard to controlling pollution, the officials were asked to adopt advanced technology for effective disposal of wastes and proper maintenance of the surrounding.

Special chief secretary Neerabh Kumar Prasad, APPCB secretary Vivek Yadav and others took part in the review.