India's capital district of Delhi, the fourth most polluted city in the world, allowed 372 of the 650 industrial units served with a closure notice for pollution in December, to reopen this week. With the Delhi government ignoring the Supreme Court s directive and allowing the polluting industries to spew effluents unabated, there is no relief for the Yamuna River that flows through the city down to the Ganges plains and into the Bay of Bengal. Chandni Chowk, one of the main markets of Delhi. This decision has angered not only environmentalists but also some government officials, who consider Delhi government s decision to be based on politics and not on basic realities. Speaking on assurance of anonymity, officials told ENS that a large number of polluting industries have furnished the exact same photographs to prove installation of the treatment plants.
Industrialists consider ETPs to be a dead investment.
The Delhi Pollution Control Board has received about 900 applications requesting a review of the closure order. Talwar says that his department will re-examine the status of each industrial unit. In September 1999, India s highest court issued a directive to close down all units whose effluents were turning the Yamuna River into an open sewer. The Supreme Court s deadline for the installation of the effluent treatment plants ended on November 1, 1999. We are aware that the industrial units are the major source of the rise in water pollution levels.