Govt may ban ammonia in cold storage units

TNN, Jan 25, 2011, 12.55am IST

KOLKATA: First Barrackpore, then Manicktala and now Nagerbazar. Worried by the repeated incidents of gas leak in densely populated areas, the West Bengal Pollution Control Board is considering banning the use of ammonia in cold storages.

"There are other options, already in use, which can be minimise the use of ammonia and chlorine in coolants," said a PCB official. The board is likely to issue a directive on January 27.

PCB has asked its scientists to find out if climatic conditions this winter has been the coldest in years could be one of the factors in the recurrent gas leaks.

PCB officials admit that there is no mechanism to monitor these small cold storages spread out in the outskirts. "The volume of ammonia they store is within permissible limits. We cannot book them for air or water pollution. We are monitoring the large ones situated outside the KMA limits," a PCB officer said.

All these units came up before the West Bengal Town and Country Planning Act, 1979, came into force. In 1997, the PCB took an initiative to identify hazardous industries to move them out of the city. "The government shifted the Howrah foundry units and tanneries in the Beliaghata, Tiljala and Topsia under Supreme Court directives but cold storages escaped the notice of the board because they do not regularly discharge effluents," the PCB official said.

There is another side to the story. Unlike other metros, Kolkata did not have a land map demarcating residential, industrial and mixed areas. This allowed many residential complexes to come up in erstwhile industrial areas in North 24-Parganas, Howrah and Kolkata. When KMDA put the land map in place, it could do little about the old units.

Complaints about these units poured in from residents but the government could not relocate them due to lack of space. Now, the government is considering a proposal to bring all chemical storage units under the scanner. "The PCB is preparing a list of all such units to bring them under the Factory Act," said an official.

Buddha ready to lend a hand and land to Pachauri

West Bengal to have branch of green think tank

Kolkata, Feb 20, 2009: West Bengal is all set to get a research centre dealing with climate-related issues under the guidance of Nobel laureate R K Pachauri. The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) will be starting its Kolkata chapter as soon as the state government allots land for the project.

“We will be setting up an institute to look into the prospects of bio fuel, renewable energy and create more energy-efficient buildings in the state,” Dr Pachauri said. He said about five acres of land will be required for the institute.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said: “West Bengal has been working closely with Dr Pachauri for a long time now. We will be happy to give them land at Baruipur to set up their institute.” The chief minister and Dr Pachauri were speaking on the sidelines of an environment summit at a city hotel on Thursday.

TERI is already working on a project on the Sunderbans delta, a fragile ecosystem now threatened by rising sea-levels. “West Bengal has a delta as well as snow capped mountains and thus, the effects of climate change here, will also be equally diverse,” said Dr Pachauri.

The study, which is partly sponsored by the West Bengal government, will take another year for completion. “We are already working in the Sunderban region and would like to extend our study to the entire state,” he added.

According to Dr Pachauri, one of the major environmental challenges in the state is that 94 per cent of Bengal’s power comes from thermal sources. “We need to form a strategy and develop alternative sources of energy for the state,” he said.

Bhattacharjee also stressed on the fact that auto emissions, drinking water, medical wastes and depletion of greenery and water bodies were the major challenges facing the state. “We need to move away from petrol and diesel — towards bio fuel and electricity-run vehicles,” he said.

Earlier, Dr Pachauri had launched a scheme for green-rating of environment-friendly buildings in the city. This rating, being introduced for residential as well as corporate buildings, would be given by the TERI in partnership with the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and Green Power Corporation, the corporate entity of the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency, which is headed by S.P. Gonchaudhuri.

Court to monitor autorickshaw ban in West Bengal

Kolkata, Jan 9 : The Calcutta High Court Friday directed the West Bengal government to file a progress report on how it was implementing the ban on two-stroke autorickshaws in the city.A two-member division bench of the high court, comprising Chief Justice S.S Nijjar and Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, ordered the state government to submit a report every 15 days, which would be scrutinised from time to time.

It said the state government’s request for extension of time till July 31, 2009 will be considered in the next hearing. The division bench directed that till further orders no auto rickshaw with valid document and registration would be seized. Earlier, the high court issued an order July last year to ban commercial vehicles registered before Jan 1, 1993, from Kolkata and its outskirts.

It said that all auto-rickshaws, irrespective of their date of registration, will have to convert to either compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The order was to be implemented by Dec 31, 2008, in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area, which includes parts of North and South 24-Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly.

The court issued the order after the state environment department had placed before the high court a notification (in July 2008) for freeing the city of severe automobile pollution. It is estimated that around 80,000 auto-rickshaws, 24,000 taxis and over 8,000 buses and mini-buses would be affected by the implementation of the court order.

WBGEDC offers zero-pollution auto

KOLKATA, 7 January, 2009: Auto owners flustered with the EMI on new LPG autos have an alternative at hand. The West Bengal Green Energy Development Corporation, along with automobile manufacturer Tara International, is offering them a package that will turn out cheaper than an LPG switch and be even more environment friendly. What's better, they don't need to dump their old vehicles. All they have to do is pay Rs 65,000 and have a battery-driven engine mounted in their old auto.

WBGEDC managing director SP Ganchouhuri said Tara International had approached them to manufacture battery autos in the city. "They have already started manufacturing such autos at their Barasatunit ," he said, adding that WBGEDC has run "10 to 15 battery autos on an experimental basis". The company's battery-operated two-wheelers have been a success, Ganchoudhuri said. "So far, more than 10,000 green two-wheelers have been sold. We now plan to introduce battery-run autos in the city that would drastically cut down auto emission," he said. It would cost about Rs 1.25 lakh to convert an old auto into a battery-driven one, Ganchoudhuri. "The Centre will give a subsidy of Rs 50,000 and another Rs 10,000 subsidy would be given by the state. An auto driver will only have to shell out about Rs 65,000, that too in phases," Ganchoudhuri said.

According to a scheme that is being worked out, a driver would be able to repay the entire amount simply by paying Rs 200 daily to get the batteries recharged. Ganchoudhuri said: "The old fuel-based engine would be replaced by a motor that would have rechargeable batteries. These autos can run up to 80 km per charge and can have a maximum speed of 60 km per hour, carrying six passengers. WBGEDC is designing small solar panels that would tap solar energy to recharge the batteries. So, the auto owner doesn't even run up an electricity bill. The battery auto is not only a zero-emission vehicle, it is also soundless."

Calcutta HC directs WB govt to close down tanneries in Kolkata

Kolkata, Dec 12: The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed the West Bengal government to close down all tanneries in the metropolis by Wednesday in accordance with a Supreme Court order of 1997. A division bench comprising Chief Justice S S Nijjar and Justice S Banerjee directed the Kolkata Police Commissioner and the Superintendent of Police, South 24 Parganas, to assist the administration in closing down nearly 70 tanneries still operating in Tiljala and Tangra areas in east Kolkata.

The court-appointed special officer and senior counsel Jaideep Kar submitted his report after inspecting the localities. A leather complex was set up at Bantala in South 24 Parganas district to house all tanneries in the city some years ago to prevent pollution in residential areas. Petitioner Maqbool Ahmed, a resident of Tiljala, had claimed on December five that the 1997 order of Supreme Court to shift the tanneries to the leather complex had not been carried out. The petitioner had also annexed a letter by the chairman of the state Pollution Control Board of June 19 this year to the West Bengal chief secretary that the apex court order was being violated and several tanneries were yet to shift to the complex.

Advocate General Balai Roy submitted that despite the Supreme Court order to shift the tanneries to the leather complex at Bantala, around 70 of them were still operating by using domestic water and power connections illegally. After raids, they simply shifted to some other place in the locality and continued to function, he said.