The city’s spoon shaped topography—surrounded by hill ranges on three sides and sea on the other—leaving no scope for escape in the event of a major industrial disaster has remained a hot topic of debate for over two decades.
Rapid industrialisation, removal of critically polluted industrial cluster tag given to the city by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) following ‘improvement’ in emission parameters and blatant violation of the Coastal Regulation Zone notification issued in 1991 have remained matters of serious concern.
The alarming rise in concrete jungle culture changing the beach morphology has reduced the shoreline causing coastal erosion. Dumping of industrial effluents, plastic waste and sewage into the sea has led to a fall in fish catch affecting livelihood of fisherfolk.
When Cyclone Hudhud battered the city, some of the major process industries were forced to shut down their operations all of a sudden instead of resorting to safe shutdown. Fortunately, there was no leakage of hazardous gases. Very often experts have cautioned that the city is sitting on a powder keg.
The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, in a study conducted in 1990, identified several areas as hotspots for pollution.
With the city’s topography in a bowl area, the people have no way to escape in the event of a major accident.
Weak laws, ineffective board
Social activist and former bureaucrat E.A.S. Sarma told The Hindu that as a result of weak environmental laws, non-deterrent penal provisions and an ineffective AP Pollution Control Board, over the years, Visakhapatnam has become heavily polluted. The CPCB has, on the basis of a scientifically determined Comprehensive Environment Pollution Index (CEPI), rated the Visakhapatnam industrial region as one of the most heavily polluted industrial clusters in the country.
Though APPCB prepared a time-bound action plan to reduce industrial pollution, it has not been complied with. Satellite imagery shows that the atmospheric density of aerosols over Vizag is increasing at the fastest rate among the major cities in the country, he said.
Industrial pollutants are highly toxic and they have already contaminated the air and the surface/ground water sources, entering the food chain that sustains life, causing a wide range of diseases that include bronchial and skin afflictions, cancer, kidney diseases, nervous disorder and so on, the former bureaucrat said.
