Chimneys belch smoke at an industrial unit in Dhanbad. File picture

Dhanbad, March 15: Small-scale industries, feel the town’s pollution control officers, were responsible for Dhanbad’s foul air, rated to be the worst in Jharkhand in a recent study carried out by IIT scientists in association with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Union ministry of environment and forest.

In an attempt to explain Dhanbad’s position — 13th among 43 critically polluted industrial clusters of the country — regional pollution control officer of Dhanbad Dinesh Prasad Singh said that lack of effective pollution control facilities was the major reason behind Dhanbad’s plight.

“Pollution control facilities was one of the four parameters of the comprehensive pollution index. And since major polluting industries of Dhanbad are small-scale industries which are devoid of pollution control facilities, Dhanbad was placed above other industrial towns of Jharkhand,” said Singh.

For the IIT study, 88 industrial clusters from across the country were considered and examined by applying a comprehensive environmental pollution index based on four parameters including level of air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, besides pollution control facilities. If Dhanbad was 13th nationally, in Jharkhand it was the most polluted ahead of Jamshedpur, Giridih, Ramgarh and Ranchi.

The CPCB categorised most polluting industries, i,e. R category of industries, into two sub-categories — R17 and R54 (10 R54 category industries are equivalent to one R17 category of industry).

Singh explained that R17 category industries were primarily in the large and medium-scale in sectors of cement, thermal power, sponge iron, zinc, aluminium and refining. And Dhanbad had only six such industries, much less than what other industrial clusters of the state hosted.

R54 category industries, primarily small-scale, were in sectors like hard coke, coal brickett, soft coke and stone crushing. Dhanbad has 396 of these highly polluting industries.

“As R54 category industries are in large numbers in Dhanbad and since they are primarily small-scale industries that rarely adopt pollution control measures, Dhanbad figures ahead of others in pollution levels,” Singh said and added that he had sought specific data from the ministry to initiate correctives.

In its order of February 13, the environment ministry has banned the establishment of new industries and expansion of existing ones in areas declared critically polluted. But Singh said he hadn’t received specific instructions yet. “We are still entertaining new industries,” he said, but added they would stop as soon as the instruction reached them.