Green norms to be made more stringent for industry: Javadekar

Expressing concern over rising industrial and vehicular pollution in the country, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar today said he wanted to make green norms more stringent for the industry and strengthen regulations for diesel vehicles.
The minister, however, told the industry that the government would be "practical" in its approach and business leaders would be consulted before framing any rules in this regard.
"Last week only, we have made environment norms more stringent for the cement industry. I want to do it in all industries in future. But there have to be rules. That makes the environment norms be more stringent," Javadekar said at the 9th Sustainable and Inclusive Solutions Summit organised by CII here.

"We will go ahead with the rules and ensure 100 per cent compliance," he said.
Noting that vehicular pollution has more than doubled in the past two decades, the minister said the government was making "additional norms" for vehicles to bring down carbon emission.
"Why diesel norms are lower than the petrol norms?" he asked, observing that the price difference between diesel and petrol has come down in the market-based mechanism.

"Now we can also prepone the higher stringent norms for diesel vehicles also. We can do....We must do. I think that is the model for ensuring growth with sustainability," Javadekar said.

Lamenting that "we contaminate everything", he said 80 per cent of the sewage treatment plants set up in various industrial units were "non-functional".
"We must create the infrastructure for protection of environment and we must use it," Javadekar said.
He also pulled up certain industrial houses for making operational their sewage treatment plants when government officials go to inspect them.
"There are factories with such facilities, but they always work when our inspectors go. They immediately shuts down when the inspectors go out. This should not be done," he said, adding that the government has closed down 46 polluting industries in the Ganga basin.

Narrating the steps taken by the government to bring down pollution in Ganga, he said over 140 industries in have been given notice to strictly implement the pollution-control rules in three months time.
"We want to improve our monitoring. We want to go ahead with making our rules more stringent. We want to be growth- friendly also My slogan is development without destruction," Javadekar added.