The Gujarat High Court has stressed on the significance of effluent management in the textile industries discharging wastewater in the Sabarmati River.
The court emphasised that the major source of environmental pollution from the textile industry is the huge amount of wastewater discharged with high chemical load.
The Bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Vaibhavi Nanavati made this observation while declining reliefs to the textile industries which urged the Court to permit the industries to reconnect the sewer lines to enable them to discharge industrial effluent into the sewer lines.
In its final observations, the Court came down heavily on the Ashima Ltd. and other industries that had averred that Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) technology was not financially viable.
Another industry which had shifted to this technology was appreciated by the Bench, even as the Bench directed the industries to cooperate with the Corporation, the State Government and the Pollution Control Board to work out a viable industrial effluent pipeline which could carry the effluent straight to the Central Effluent Treatment Plants (CETP). Accordingly, the Court dismissed the applications.
The Gujarat High Court has taken suo moto cognizance of excessive pollution in the Sabarmati River owing to a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) flouting the treatment norms and releasing untreated water into the river.