The Council of Scientific and Industrial Analysis-Nationwide Environmental Engineering Institute (CSIR-NEERI) has performed a research with respect to air air pollution brought on by stone crushing items in Tamil Nadu and concluded that there isn’t any must prescribe any distance standards between two items, Advocate Common R. Shunmugasundaram informed the Madras Excessive Court docket on Monday.
Showing earlier than Appearing Chief Justice T. Raja and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, the A-G stated, CSIR-NEERI had prescribed a security distance of 500 metres solely between the stone crushing items and nationwide/State highways, inhabited websites, academic establishments, public places of work, locations of spiritual significance and so forth with a purpose to keep away from the affect of mud emission.
The professional physique had, the truth is, advisable institution of the stone crushing items in clusters, Mr. Shunmugasundaram stated and urged the courtroom to vacate a keep imposed in September 2019 on the operation of Tamil Nadu Air pollution Management Board’s July 31, 2019 notification which relaxed the 2004 requirement of sustaining a distance of 1 kilometre between stone crushing items.
Nonetheless, senior counsel T. Mohan, representing public curiosity litigation petitioner E.V. Sampath, vehemently opposed the plea to vacate the keep in operation for the final three years and contended that CSIR-NEERI’s report was essentially flawed. Following his opposition to the request made by the State, the judges determined to listen to the case intimately on April 25.
In his submissions, the A-G stated, there have been round 2,800 stone crushing items within the State and so they produce round 1.60 crore tonnes of blue steel jelly each month. Additional, 406 of these stone crushing items had been able to producing Manufactured Sand (M-Sand) too and subsequently, a number of infrastructure tasks had suffered successful because of the keep granted in 2019, he stated.
To discover a scientific resolution to the issue, the State authorities on August 11, 2021 requested CSIR-NEERI to conduct a research and submit a report. Accordingly, the professional physique studied the operations of 57 crushing items at Tirusulam in Chengalpattu district for coastal space monitoring and 27 items at Kodangipalayam in Tiruppur district for inland space monitoring.
Ambient air high quality survey was performed in 21 places in Tirusulam and 30 places in Kodangipalayam by participating excessive quantity samplers. The extent of Whole Suspended Particulate Matter, Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter and Particulate Matter had been studied at completely different distances from the supply of air pollution.
After the research, CSIR-NEERI submitted a report titled ‘Evaluation of Mud Emissions from Stone Crushing Industries and Distance Standards within the State of Tamil Nadu’ in June 2022. The report acknowledged that it was advisable for the stone crushing items to operate in clusters shut to one another and that there was no necessity to prescribe any distance norm.
The report additionally advisable measures resembling rising of evergreen timber together with Ashoka, Neem and Tamarind across the crushing items; following good home retaining practices resembling spraying water commonly to stop unfold of mud particles and masking of fantastic mud with tarpauline throughout storage, the A-G stated and requested the courtroom to vacate the keep.
