Bhubaneswar, April 25: The Orissa government has decided not to allow new sponge iron units in the state following allegations of pollution caused by the existing ones.

A committee headed by chief secretary Subash Pani recently took the decision to impose a ban, which would also cover units whose applications were pending with the Orissa Pollution Control Board (OPCB) for no-objection certificates.

Arguing that the sponge iron units were of ?no great importance? to the state, the committee made it clear that the existing ones will not be able to add to their capacities. The restrictions, however, will not be applicable to those sponge iron units which are part of integrated steel plants, it clarified.

At present, 64 sponge iron units are operating in the state, of which 33 are in Sundargarh and 17 in Keonjhar district. No-objection certificates have been granted to another 18 units in seven districts. Moreover, applications for 32 units are pending with the pollution control board.

Last week, The Telegraph highlighted the plight of people who live in the vicinity of polluting sponge iron units in Sundargarh. Apparently, these industries get away due to the absence of technical surveillance by the OPCB. The board, on the other hand, is not able to focus on the polluting units as it is busy monitoring stonecrushers and brick kilns.

While the problem can be solved to a large extent by installing electrostatic precipitators, most of the sponge iron units either do not have them. In some cases, the plant authorities do not use the precipitators owing to the high consumption of electricity.

In a bid to address this issue, the committee has decided that the sponge iron units would have to instal separate energy meters for the air pollution control devices. The meters would be jointly sealed by representatives of the OPCB and the power distribution company concerned.

The committee underlined the need for giving more teeth to the OPCB?s inspection teams. Besides, the board will employ more workers on contract basis for the Rourkela and Cuttack regional offices.

The state will use the services of employees of engineering colleges for inspections by the OPCB. Each employee will get a sum of around Rs 500 as inspection fee.