Byrnihat: Desperate to erase the ‘Most Polluted’ tag, the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board has ordered closure of six factories in the industrial town of Byrnihat in Meghalaya.
A team of Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) officials ordered closure of six industrial units operating in Byrnihat for violating environmental norms.
The team led by Principal Secretary of Forest & Environment, Sampath Kumar inspected 10 industrial units in and around Byrnihat and ordered closure of six units.
The closure notice to the six industrial units at Byrnihat is significant because the industrial town of Meghalaya was the ‘most polluted city’ in India in February this year.
According to data released by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) on March 7, Byrnihat had recorded a monthly average PM2.5 concentration of 183µg/m3, which was 60µg/m3 higher than in Bihar’s Araria, the second-most polluted city in India.
The PM2.5 levels in Byrnihat were almost 1.8 times higher than the PM2.5 concentration recorded for Delhi for the same period.
The closure notice was result of repeated non-compliance with the directives previously issued by the MSPCB by the industrial units in Byrnihat.
It was found that the industrial units lacked proper meter for the Pollution Control Device (PCD), raising serious concerns about the effectiveness of the best practices of pollution control.
