Green laws flouted to operate plant
● THE ILL-FATED plant in Visakhapatnam was operating without the mandatory environmental clearance for 13 years ● LG POLYMERS went for expansion without valid EC
LG Polymers India Pvt Ltd has been operating the ill-fated plant in Visakhapatnam without mandatory environmental clearance for the last 13 years, making a mockery of the statutory environmental rules of the land.
Contrary to the assertion of the top brass of the Andhra Pradesh administration that LG, being a top company from South Korea, would maintain high safety standards, its gross negligence has resulted in the accident.
“Due to stagnation and changes in temperature, it could have resulted in auto polymerisation which in turn could have caused vaporisation,” P. Chandra Mohan Rao, director (operations), told media persons. It is selfexplanatory that the company failed to comply with the mandatory procedure to be followed at the storage facilities of hazardous chemicals, particularly when the plant was shut for about two months due to the lockdown. Neither stagnation nor changes in temperatures were monitored and rectified in the last several days.
Incidentally, Mohan Rao’s sworn affidavit filed before the State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority in May 2019, a copy of which is available with Deccan
Chronicle, is self explanatory. It says that the ‘manufacture of polystyrene (PS) and expandable polystyrene (EPS) is in operation without a valid environmental clearance’ which is a ‘violation as per the statute in vogue.’
The ministry of environment, forest and climate change issued an Environment Impact Assessment Notification 2006 and mandated that the industrial units going for expansion should mandatorily obtain environmental clearance. LG Polymers went for expansion as per its own affidavit at least five times after 2006 but never obtained the EC.
They were operating with the Consent for Establishment and Consent for Operations issued by the state authorities.
While the capacity of EPS was enhanced from
45 tonne per day (TPD) in
2004 to 102 in 2017, the capacity of polystyrene went up from 235 TPD to
313 TPD during the same time.
The company also set up a facility for manufacture of Engineering Plastic in 2018 with installed capacity of 36.67 TPD.
“As on date our industry does not have a valid EC substantiating the produced quantity, issued by the competent authority for continuing operations,” Mr Mohan Rao said in the affidavit, adding that “I undertake inter alia not to repeat any such violation in future.”
Deccan Chronicle made several attempts to elicit information from the state government on whether the company obtained the EC from the competent authority and followed all the norms stipulated in EIA 2006.
Neerab Kumar Prasad, special chief secretary, environment and forest, chose not to react to the queries.