A report recently published by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) under the aegis of the Ministry of Environment and Forests has classified the quality of air, land and underground water of the district as ‘alarmingly polluted’ owing to industrial activities dominated by the leather sector.

The CPCB, jointly with the State Pollution Control Boards and the IIT, Delhi, graded a selective group of 88 industrial clusters with the use of the Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI). The two-year study, a first in the country, mapped the algorithm of pollution source, pathway, receptor and additional high-risk elements to calculate the CEPI.

A total of 12 industrial clusters had been selected for the study in Uttar Pradesh, nine in Gujarat, eight in Maharashtra, seven in Tamil Nadu, five each in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh, four each in Orissa, Punjab and Rajasthan, three each in Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh, two each in Assam, Haryana and Uttarakhand and one each in Bihar, Delhi and Kerala.

In Tamil Nadu, industrial clusters at Coimbatore, Cuddalore, Erode, Manali, Mettur, Tirupur and Vellore were taken up for study. In the case of Vellore, the CEPI of air, water and land pollution scored 81.79 out of a total of 100.

While Vellore ranks eighth among the top 10 polluted clusters under this classification, the top slot is held by Ankleshwar in Gujarat (88.5), closely followed by Vapi in the same State (88.09), Ghaziabad in UP (87.37), Chandrapur in Maharashtra (83.88), Korba in Chhattisgarh (83), Bhiwadi in Rajasthan (82.91) and Angul Talcher in Orissa (82.09).

Cuddalore ranks second with its water and land quality being classified as ‘critically polluted’ while the air quality has been graded as ‘seriously polluted’ with a CEPI of 77.45. In Manali, the air quality was found to be more polluted, with a CEPI of 76.32. With a CEPI of 72.38, the air quality in Coimbatore was ‘critically polluted’, water ‘severely polluted’, whereas the land environment was stratified as ‘normal’.

In Tirupur, all the components of air, water and land were classified as ‘severely polluted’ as it recorded a CEPI of 68.38, while in Mettur, the land and air environments are normal but water pollution is classified as ‘severe’ (CEPI - 68.98). The air, water and land environments in Erode have been classified as normal with a CEPI of 58.19, despite the large number of leather and textile industries there.

In the case of all the seven clusters in Tamil Nadu, there were additional high-risk elements - the inadequacy of pollution control measures, an unorganised waste disposal system, and defaulting on maintenance and operation. These ranged between a score of 10 and 15 out of 20.

Vellore is the only leather cluster with a high CEPI (above 80) in the 10 highly polluted clusters in the country.

The CEPI report shows that 43 out of the 88 clusters are ‘critically polluted’ with respect to one or more environmental components, and suggests that further detailed investigation in terms of the extent of damage and formulation of a suitable remedial action plan is needed to restore the environmental balance in these clusters.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, while releasing the report, had gone on record saying that the situation had spiralled out of control and that many of these clusters had reached their limits. He said a moratorium on their expansion should be enforced until pollution-control measures were put in place.

While the leather industry here has been claiming that it has been strictly implementing pollution control measures by utilising huge government funds over the last decade, the study has exposed that these measures have not helped Vellore in improving the quality of its environment.