HYDERABAD: Reacting strongly over the closure of 15 factories by the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) in Hyderabad a couple of days ago, leaders of local business and trade organisations on Saturday urged the higher authorities to save them from ‘unfair, unaffordable and unjustifiable burden’ and also save a large number of industrial workers from losing their jobs.

Speaking at a news conference in the local press club, Hyderabad SITE Association of Trade and Industry leaders Mazharul Haq and Salahuddin Qureshi, Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry leader Ziauddin, Hyderabad Chamber of Small Trade and Industry leader Nadeem Siddiqui and other industrialists condemned Sepa for sealing 15 factories without waiting for the deadline given to them to comply with its earlier order.

They observed that the environment protection law under which action was being taken against industries was introduced only a couple of years back but they were being forced to strictly observe all its provisions, including establishment of a treatment plan, which was not possible.

“Meeting Sepa requirements needs ample time, which is not given, and a huge amount of money which is beyond the affordability of every industrialist,” they argued.

They said that around 200 industrial units of Hyderabad were told to have their own effluent treatment plant but action was started in the last week of January.

Secondly, they said, every recipient of the Sepa letter was not under obligation to have such a plant because every industry did not generate environmentally dangerous effluent.

In fact, it was for the Sindh government to establish a plant to treat effluent disposed of by factories in Hyderabad SITE like the one it had installed in the Kotri SITE, which was yet to start functioning, they said.

The industrialists also took exception to the attitude of Sepa and police officials who sealed the 15 factories, saying that the action was taken “as if we are some terrorist organisations”.

The authorities concerned must keep in mind that such an ‘unfair’ action would render thousands of workers jobless as had already happened in the case of the 15 factories, they said. The leaders of trade and industrial organisations said they were doing their best to fulfil the Sepa requirements in line with the relevant act but they should be allowed reasonable time while the government must address the issue of the huge amount of money involved.

In reply to a question, they said that hardly 30 out of the total 200 industrial units in Hyderabad were found having failed to observe Sepa standards and they, too, were striving hard to do that within their resources. “It’s impossible for a small factory to have treatment plant, which is very costly,” they said.

They suggested setting up of a committee comprising Hydera­bad commissioner and mayor, SITE managing director, technical experts and other such people to take decisions on the implementation of environmental laws, rules and regulations, besides ensuring that Sepa did not go beyond its limit and injustice was not done to any industrialist.

Published in Dawn January 29th, 2017