The government has said that there has been a significant reduction in industrial pollution in River Ganga since it started monitoring the polluting industries in the area.

“Conservative estimates say that discharge from 764 grossly polluting industries has been brought down by 125 million litres per day (MLD) from 501 MLD during the last assessment in 2012,” Minister of State (independent charge) for Environment Prakash Javadekar said at a press conference on Wednesday.

The Minister said that there has been substantial progress in installation of Online Continuous Effluent Monitoring Systems (OCEMS). Out of the 764 polluting industries, 514 units have already installed them while 94 are in the process of doing so.

Closure orders

Closure orders have been issued to 150 remaining units that have not responded to installation of OCEMS. Responses of 6 other units are being examined. Steps are also on to establish connectivity of OCEMS with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) server.

The problem of black liquor discharge and spent wash has been largely controlled, the Minister added.

The CPCB had formulated an action plan for abatement of industrial pollution in Ganga mainstream states, covering five key industrial sectors - sugar, paper and pulp, distillery, textile and tannery, with the twin objectives of reducing effluent generation and organic load.

CPCB is directly monitoring the progress of implementation of the plan and is being facilitated by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

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