Ministry to formulate stringent norms for dumping chemicals

Objective of exercise to reduce harmful dumping of chemicals

The department of chemicals and petrochemicals is working on stringent quality norms to check dumping of basic chemicals in India.

The department under the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers in collaboration with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) proposes to come up with such norms for 8-10 basic chemicals .

The objective of this exercise is to reduce harmful dumping of chemicals. Most of the time in order to sell cheap, the countries violate various significant environmental norms said an official.

Such norms, to start with will be applicable for bulk chemicals used for industrial products like soda ash, caustic soda, aniline, phenol, hydrogen peroxide, boric acid, phthalic anhydride among others. Incidentally the Customs department has imposed anti dumping duty on most of these items.

Officials added that in the long run, what need is a REACH (registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals) legislation enacted in the European Union for protecting human health and environment.

The Sustainable Policy and Chemical Act as proposed under the National Chemical Policy could replace 40 different environment-related legislation. However at present, there are no specific legislation for registration, ban and classification of substances," said an official source.

The ministry of chemicals and fertilisers had proposed to set up a national chemical centre to formulate environment and human-friendly policies and contain risks posed by chemicals.

Soda ash is a common chemical used I for manufacturing of soaps and detergents, glass, food dialysis, water treatment and personal care markets. Aniline is used for making various specialised chemicals , foams, specialised fibres etc.

Caustic soda is a strong chemical base used in the manufacture of pulp and paper, textiles, drinking water, soaps and detergents and as a drain cleaner.

Boric acid is used for insecticide, fluxes for jewellery and metalwork, borosil glasses, laboratory, glass ware, cooking ware.

Phenol, on the other hand is used in pharmaceutical preparations and high explosives. Hydrogen peroxide is used as domestic bleach, host of industrial applications, disinfectant, veterinary care, water treatment and aeration for fish and plants. Phthalic anhydride is used an important industrial chemical and used as plasticizer for plastics.

While on one hand, such chemical dumping without quality checks pollute the environment, they also harm the domestic chemical industry. Officials added that dumping is legal under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff (GATT) norms of World Trade Organisation (WTO) unless its injurious effect on the importing country's producers can be established.

However unfair pricing of such chemicals most of the time is also injurious to the chemical industry. Dumping is referred to as exporting goods by a country at prices lower than the home-market prices in other countries.