Getting tough with the industrial units creating noise pollution, Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) on Monday sealed six industrial units for flouting the norms.

The units which have been sealed are: Ess Enn Forging, Teg Forging, Gobind Forging, all located on the main Gill Road while Rahul Enterprises, BJ Enterprises and Ranbir Enterprises are located in Shimlapuri. All these units were sealed on October 1. Similar action against 100 more such units is also in the offing, it is learnt.

The industrialists tried to persuade the PPCB authorities to rollback their decision and unseal their units but the authorities stuck to their stand.

Today, hundreds of industrialists under the banner of small-scale industries and traders associations held a protest rally and blocked traffic outside PPCB office located at Gill Road.

All the units are located in residential areas as per the new master plan and the action has been taken following a complaint by one Sher Singh, a resident of these area. Singh had moved to court, which had directed the PPCB to take action against the erring units.

According to an information available, all these are forging units and most of them have a noise level of more than 80 decibles(db) against the standard limit of 70 db. A few units were producing sound levels of more than 100 db as well. Hence, the board sealed them for not following anti-pollution norms and causing harm to the residents in the area.

Gurwant Singh, president of Small Scale Industries and Traders Association, said, “More than 60% of the industry is located in Shimlapuri and adjoining areas and still in the master plan, it has been declared a residential area. We are already running our units on gen sets because of the prevailing power cuts during the day time. We cannot run our units in night hours keeping in mind the inconvenience it may cause to the residents. It is very difficult for us to survive in these circumstances, and the government should provide us some alternate land so that we can set up our units there.”

The industrialists rue that while many nearby areas where both industrial units as well as residences exist have been given a mixed land use status, status of their area had not been changed.

Today, when industrialists went to meet the PPCB executive engineer BB Handa in a rally, but he was not in office.

Ess Enn Forging, Teg Forging and Gobind Forging have around 40- 50 workers each while the rest of units have workers in the range of 20-25, who have now been rendered unemployed.

N.D Goyal, owner of Es Enn Forging, Bhushan Kumar, owner of Teg Forging, and Sushil Kumar, owner of Gobind Forging, reasoned that their units were located on the main road where already the noise pollution level was too high and hence the action against these units was not justified.

When contacted, BB Handa, executive engineer, PPCB, told Newsline, “I met the industrialists late in the evening. All the sealed units are not using air pollution control devices and hence it is a source of nuisance for those living around these areas. Until these units follow the norms, their units will remain sealed.” BB Handa said that they had identified other violating units as well, who too would face the music soon.