Cuttack, Oct. 1: The National Green Tribunal has ordered a probe into the alleged discharge of wastewater by Brahmani River Pellets Ltd to nearby areas, causing pollution of the water body.

The green panel has asked the Odisha State Pollution Control Board to inspect the area at Kalinga Nagar in Jajpur district and submit a report. It has also given a free run to the board to immediately take action if the allegations are found to be true.

The tribunal's east zone bench in Calcutta issued the probe order on a petition filed by the Kalinga Nagar Paribesh Surakhya Samiti.

According to the petition, the plant produces iron ore pellets for use in iron and steel plants for production of hot metal. It produces pellets from iron ore slurry.

The slurry is prepared in its beneficiation plant at Tonto in Keonjhar district. This plant acts as a feeder unit to the pellet plant. The iron ore in slurry form is pumped from Tonto to Kalinga Nagar through a pipeline that traverses more than 200km. The material, after separation from water at Kalinga Nagar, is then used to produce the pellets. About 1.6 tonnes of slurry is used to produce a tonne of pellets. Around 100 cubic metre per hour of water remains as surplus.

In addition, the Tonto plant also intermittently pumps pressurised water to clear the slurry pipeline. This water is about 400 metre per hour. Altogether about 500 cubic metre per hour of water is surplus in the Kalinga Nagar plant, and this process continues for about 10 hours daily, creating a surplus of about 5,000 cubic metre of water at the Kalinga Nagar plant daily.

In his petition, samiti president Aswini Kumar Dhal alleged that this waste water was being discharged through six underground pipelines from the plant. The matter came up for hearing on September 22.

'After preliminary hearing, the tribunal's east zone bench of Justice S.P. Wangdi (judicial member) and P.C. Mishra (expert member) posted the matter to October 26 for hearing, along with the inspection report of the pollution control board,' petitioner counsel Sankar Pani said.

'In the meanwhile, we direct member secretary, state pollution control board, to inspect the area in question and submit a report before the next date,' the tribunal's order said.

'In the event infractions, as alleged, is found to have been committed by respondent No. 4 (managing director, Brahmani River Pellets Ltd), action as per law may be taken in exercise of the powers vested in them thereby and file a report on the next date,' the order said.

The petition alleged that Brahmani River Pellets Ltd 'has never complied to the condition of zero discharge imposed in environmental clearance of ministry of environment, forest and climate change, government of India as well as consent to operate order issued by the state pollution control board'.

The petition pointed out that the ministry of environment, forest and climate change had accorded environment clearance to the four-million-tonne per annum iron ore pellet plant stipulating a condition that zero effluent discharge shall be strictly followed and no wastewater shall be discharged to outside the premises. The pollution control board had also granted a consent to operate notice to the unit, stipulating that under no circumstances wastewater should be allowed to be discharged outside.

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