The Hooghly banks at Howrah station, where eight eateries have been ordered to close down for polluting the river water. A Telegraph picture

Eight eateries on the Hooghly banks, opposite Howrah station, will have to close down within two months for polluting the river.

The order of the state pollution control appellate authority said the eateries will have to close down by the deadline even if alternative accommodation is not made available to them.

The order, issued on Tuesday, also stated that electricity connection to the premises would be snapped after the deadline expires.

The state pollution control board had asked the units in September last year to move out by January 2008. The board’s move followed a recommendation by the high court-appointed Ganga Pollution Monitoring Committee, which stated that the hotels were “discharging effluent and waste directly into the river, in violation of statutory norms”.

The eateries appealed against the order to the appellate authority, chaired by Justice Gitesh Ranjan Bhattacharjee. “The authority has upheld the committee’s recommendation,” said environment secretary M.L. Meena.

“The units have admitted in a report that the pollution level of the effluent is nearly four times higher than the permissible limit,” said Biswajit Mukherjee, a senior law officer in the environment department.

The authority, while turning down the appeal, held that the eateries’ plan to instal an effluent treatment plant was not feasible.

“The land where the plant was proposed to come up is not owned by the polluting units. Besides, it was clear from the design that the plant could not handle such high levels of pollution,” said a member of the authority’s technical committee.

There is, however, a ray of hope for the eateries, as the local civic body has promised to accommodate them within the proposed Howrah station market complex.

“We are in the dark about the rehabilitation plan,” said Anjan Dutta, of Dutta Cabin, one of the offending units. He claimed that the eight eateries together employ 300 people and cater to 20,000 customers daily.