Activists protest against irregular functioning of environmental surveillance centre at Eloor

Environmentalists demand 24/7 monitoring of industrial pollution in Kerala, leading to increased surveillance and staff recruitment by PCB.

Environmentalists and social activists staged a protest at the Environment Surveillance Centre of the Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) at Eloor on Wednesday demanding immediate steps to ensure round-the-clock monitoring against pollution caused by industrial units in the Eloor-Edayar area.

It was a follow-up of the protests held at the centre on Tuesday after greens locked up the entrance gate alleging that the centre, which was supposed to work round-the-clock, was remaining shut on holidays and night hours for some time. Local residents had stepped up their protests following the stench emanating from industrial units in the Edayar area on Monday.

Purushan Eloor, research co-ordinator of the Periyar Malineekarana Virudha Samithi, said the PCB authorities had agreed to resume night surveillance following talks held on Wednesday. “The Board Chairman informed us that the powers of the centre head to carry out inspection in erring industrial units have not been curtailed. The authorities also told us that additional staff had been recruited, especially for monitoring of the industrial area during night hours,” he said.

Board officials at the regional office in Ernakulam said redeployment of staff had been done to meet the staff crunch at the surveillance centre. It was not able to work round-the-clock with the reduced staff strength, and hence steps have been initiated to plug the gap, they added. Environmentalists and social activists had earlier alleged that the Board had failed to initiate stringent action against industrial units flouting norms, despite repeated incidents of water and air pollution in the industrial area.