2 sugar mills forfeit bank guarantee for discharging untreated

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Tuesday informed the state Assembly that two sugar mills have forfeited their bank guarantees for discharging untreated water into rivers in West Champaran district.

Replying to BJP's Ramchandra Sahni's query, the DyCM said two sugar mills - Majhaulia Sugar Industries Ltd, Majhaulia and HPCL Bio-fuels Ltd, Lauria - have forfeited their bank guarantees of Rs 20 lakh each for discharging untreated water into Kohra and Sikarahna rivers respectively in West Champaran district.

Apart from forfeiting the bank guarantee of the two aforementioned sugar mills, Harinagar Sugar Mill, Harinagar has also been served notice for forfeiting its bank guarantee of Rs 20 lakh for discharge of polluted water into river or any water body, he said adding that the sugar mill will be penalised if it was found violating the norms in future.

The DyCM, who also holds charge of the Environment and Forest department, said all the sugar mills located in West Champaran have installed Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) in their mills and the state government would ensure that that these mills must treat their water before discharging besides storing them (treated water) for irrigating the farm land.

Replying to another query on starting yoga as subject in universities of the state, he announced that 'yoga' will definitely be taught as a subject in the universities of the state.

"We will talk to the new Governor after he assumes his office. We will definitely include 'yoga' as a subject to be taught (in universities of the state)," the DyCM said while replying to a short notice question of RJD's Bhola Yadav who wanted to know whether the state government has any proposal to start yoga as a subject in universities of the state.

Earlier, in-charge minister (for Education department) Shravan Kumar said that the matter absolutely falls under the domain of university and the Raj Bhavan but the state government will consider inclusion of 'yoga' as a subject in university if any proposal comes before it for consideration.

Kumar said that as of now there is no such course on yoga being taught in any of the state's universities except yoga institute of international repute at Munger where yoga is taught.

University is the appropriate authority to take a decision on starting the study of any particular subject, he said, adding that state government can, at best, decide about the number of seats for a particular subject.