1,160 Polluting Units To Be Shifted Out Of City

Taking a cue from Minister K T Rama Rao's discussion in the Telangana Assembly on air pollution, Industries & Commerce Principal Secretary Arvind Kumar today held a high-level meeting and reviewed the status of shifting and relocating polluting industries from inside the Outer Ringer Road to its exteriors. He said that the State government was determined to shift and relocate all polluting units existing inside the ORR by the end of next year.

On behalf of the State government, the Principal Secretary said that those units willing to shift and relocate outside the ORR on their own duly complying with environmental norms would be suitably rewarded.

He also said out of 1,545 industries existing in Hyderabad and indicted by the Pollution Control Board, 385 were already outside the ORR bounds. The remaining 1,160 industries were being proposed to be relocated to the Hyderabad Pharma City.

As per reports, the TSIIC identified specific locations outside the ring road within a distance of 100 km, in order to rid the twin cities of industrial pollution. Kumar asked the EPTRI officials, who were entrusted with the submission of a feasibility study as per guidelines, to file their reports at the earliest.

The meeting also deliberated on the measures that needed to be taken at the identified locations, categorization of the industries in terms of location, and grouping them into sector-specific clusters.

GHMC Commissioner B Janardhan Reddy, HMDA Commissioner Chiranjeevulu, EPTRI Director-General Kalyan Chakravarthy, Medchal Collector M V Reddy, TSIIC Vice Chairman and Managing Director Narasimha Reddy, Additional Director Industries Devanand and other officers were present on the occasion.