The Pollution Control Board, Assam has slapped a fine of Rs 2.05 crore on PSU firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for allegedly violating an order by the Supreme Court and causing pollution to the environment. The board\u2019s order was issued considering violation of environmental laws in six wells of the state-owned energy behemoth in Assam.<\/p>\n
\u201cPollution Control Board, Assam, is constrained to inform you that you have nonchalantly violated the provisions of law in force causing pollution to the environment \u201cEnvironmental compensation fine amounting to Rs 2,04,90,000 only has been assessed as per formula provided by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), Principal Bench,\u201d said the order dated September 5, 2019. ONGC has been asked to deposit the money within one month of issuance of the order. When contacted, ONGC officials declined to make comments immediately.<\/p>\n
Before taking the action, the Pollution Control Board, Assam (PCBA) had issued a show cause notice to the company on June 28 this year and ONGC replied to it on July 18.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour reply to the show cause notice is not based on the facts and findings of the inspection carried out during July 6 to July 8, 2019 by engineers and scientists deputed from Head Office cum Central Laboratory of this board,\u201d the order said. It also said that the drilling operation of the six well units were \u201ceither completed or in operation without installing any primary effluent treatment plant\u201d (PETP) at the sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring inspection by the officials of the board\u2019s Regional Laboratory cum Office, at Sivasagar, it has been observed that there is seepage\/leakage in the waste pits of the wells. Waste pits were full of effluent and without having any treatment facility,\u201d PCBA said.<\/p>\n
It also mentioned that the Supreme Court, in its judgment passed on February 22, 2017, had directed all the effluent discharging units to install PETP within three months, which was by May 22, 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cThereby you have violated the aforementioned order of the Supreme Court of India pertaining to installation of primary effluent treatment plant,\u201d the board told ONGC.<\/p>\n
As per the \u201canalysis report\u201d of samples collected during the inspection by the officials, it was found that parameters such as \u201coil and grease and total suspended solids\u201d are beyond the permissible limits in all cases, which indicate \u201cyour failure in pollution control measures\u201d, the order said.<\/p>\n
Though the penalty was for six wells, but the board informed ONGC that the Regional Laboratory cum Office had reported there was no mobile ETP for treatment of the effluent of the waste pits in eight wells. \u201cYou are directed to take necessary measures for proper treatment of the effluent and arrange for reclamation of the completed drill sites,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Pollution Control Board, Assam has slapped a fine of Rs 2.05 crore on PSU firm Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for allegedly violating an order by the Supreme Court and causing pollution to the environment. The board\u2019s order was issued considering violation of environmental laws in six wells of the state-owned energy behemoth in Assam. \u201cPollution Control Board, Assam, is constrained to inform you that you have nonchalantly violated the provisions of law in force causing pollution to the environment \u201cEnvironmental compensation fine amounting to Rs 2,04,90,000 only has been assessed as per formula provided by the National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}