Industries to be shut for want of effluent treatment plants: SC

NEW DELHI: Polluting industrial units across the country would be shut down if they do not have functional primary effluent treatment plants (PETPS) to stop the release of untreated waste in water bodies within three months after notice, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday.

Issuing a slew of directions, a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar directed state pollution control boards (PCBS) to issue a common notice by way of public advertisement to all industrial units to ensure that they have set up PETPS as mandated under the law to carry out industrial activities.

“We direct concerned state pollution control boards to issue notice to all industrial units by way of a common advertisement requiring them to ensure that they have functional primary effluent treatment plants.

“On the expiry of three months notice period, the concerned state pollution control boards are mandated to carry out inspections at industrial units as to whether they have functional PETPS,” the bench, also comprising Justices D Y Chandrachud and S K Kaul, said.

If industrial units do not have functional PETPS, then they will not be allowed to function any more, the court said. The bench further directed that the state PCBS will ask the concerned electricity supply boards to disconnect the power supply to the defaulting industrial units, which could resume their functions only after they made their PETPS functional.