NONGSTOIN: The Meghalaya Assembly Committee on Environment, after inspecting the Shakambari Ferro Alloy Pvt Ltd factory situated at Rwiang village of West Khasi Hills, around 21 km from Nongstoin, on Tuesday, concluded that the raw material required for the functioning of the unit such as coal, charcoal, etc, have been procured locally.
However, the company claimed that it brought coal from Andhra Pradesh and charcoal from Nagaland, while quads from the local areas.
The inspection was led by a delegation comprising Assembly Committee Chairman SK Sunn, HM Shangpliang, Kimfa Marbaniang, Miani D Shira, George Lyngdoh and Renikton Lyngdoh, besides Deputy Commissioner of West Khasi Hills, Superintendent of Police and heads of various departments.
Speaking to the press, Chairman of the Committee, SK Sunn informed that before the inspection, the Committee had carried out a discussion with the officers from the various departments including Commerce & Industries, Pollution Control Board, Forest Environment as well as Mining and Geology in Shillong.
The Committee learned from the departments that in order to run such a captive power plant, they need raw materials like coal, charcoal and quads.
Sunn said that during the inspection it was discerned that the factory consumes around 135 metric ton of coal per day.
“It (factory) has claimed that they procured coal from Andhra Pradesh, charcoal from Nagaland and quads from the local areas”, Sunn said, while adding that according to the Director of Pollution Control Board, there are no charcoal industries in Nagaland.
“This shows that the factories get all the raw materials from the local areas”, he added.
Apart from this, the committee also learned that the equipment to monitor the air containing sulphur dioxide, oxide of nitrogen and mercury are not available.
Meanwhile HM Shangpliang, member of the committee, said that the permissible limit of the air in the factory is beyond limit (50 units) and the state pollution control board had issued a letter to the factory on July, 2019 to install ambient air monitoring equipment, which would cost around Rs 5 lakh, but it has failed to do so.
“If the owner of the factory could not bear cost of installing the ambient air monitoring equipment, it depicts that they don’t care about the safety of the local residents”, Shangpliang said, while also demanding of the government to temporarily close down the factory until they fulfil the requirements.
Shallang coke factories
On the other hand, the delegation also visited Shallang later to inspect the coke factories in the area.
The Committee chairman informed that out of 20 coke units in Shallang, three factories have the clearance to run the unit and four have the consent to establish the unit, while the rest have no clearance.
However, he said that the Committee will reexamine their documents.