Textile firm Ashima moves Gujarat HC for discharge pipe, Legal News, ET LegalWorld – Legal Firms

A year after its closure and that of many other textile units in the city following the Gujarat high court prohibiting the discharge of treated effluent into the civic body’s sewerage, Ashima Ltd has approached the HC, complaining that Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) is not responding to its request for a pipeline to discharge effluent into the Mega pipeline, which takes industrial effluent to a common effluent treatment plant (CEPT).

The HC banned the discharge of treated effluent into sewers because sewage treatment plants (STP) could not process it properly and untreated wastewater was being discharged into the Sabarmati river, increasing the pollution in the river. Last year, the HC had taken up the cause of cleaning and rejuvenating the river.

Ashima told the high court that the mega pipeline had agreed to accept its treated discharge.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has also granted permission for right of way to connect a pipeline to the Mega pipeline. The high court’s order expressly said that such an option could be explored.

The company further submitted that after getting AMC’s permission to lay a pipeline from its unit to the Mega pipeline, it made an application to GPCB on July 7, requesting it to permit the connection. GPCB did not take any decision, saying the case is still pending in the court.

The company’s lawyer complained that the unit has been closed for nearly a year and some 1,300 workers are jobless. The bench of Justice Sonia Gokani and Justice V D Nanavati sought GPCB’s reply on this issue by December 2.