Taking cognisance of recent incidents of accidents that resulted in deaths and injuries in chemical factories, the Principal Bench of National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Wednesday, directed Chief Secretaries of all the States and Union Territories (UT) to evolve a mechanism to ensure that the companies dealing with hazardous substance must pay compensation without delay for deaths and injuries to the victims.

 

The bench headed by its Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel also directed to conduct safety audits of all establishments having potential for such accidents and said that all states and UT may also ensure availability of healthcare facilities in the vicinity of such establishments. The Bench said, “It may be necessary to ensure that risk studies are duly undertaken by all industries in the country dealing with the hazardous chemicals and their on-site and off-site plans are operational and mock drills are carried out for testing the same. The State Pollution Control Board’s (SPCB’s), concerned District Magistrates, CIFs of the Industries Departments may ensure the same and the nodal agency for the purpose will be the State PCBs, which may be monitored by the CPCB in an appropriate manner.” Keeping the lockdown in mind, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had directed all installations to conduct proper audit before opening the units to avoid any accident. But, the incidents are happening post lockdown throughout the country.

 

NGT has also directed Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change to constitute an Expert Committee on the subject of revamping the monitoring mechanism to check and prevent violation of environmental norms and occurrence of such incidents in future particularly in establishments dealing with hazardous chemicals and a special drive may be initiated. It also stated that the pollution control boards and District Magistrates (DMs) must assess the cost of restoration of the environment which should be recovered from the company and spent on restoration.