Tannery relocation

The government's initiative to relocate the tanneries in the city's Hazaribagh area has so far produced little by way of concrete action, as the project is apparently caught in a bureaucratic tangle. A host of legal and technical barriers are yet to be removed.

It seems tannery owners are trying to make the most out of the government decision, by producing a long list of demands which, if fulfilled, will compensate for the dislocation. There is no doubt that the legal issues have to be settled according to the law of the land. But the truth of the matter is that the tanneries not only pollute the environment, but also pose a grave threat to public health. Surveys conducted on pollution caused by tannery effluents have shown that there is no way to keep people exposed to such pollution. So it is far from a routine decision to shift a particular type of industrial units to a new site. Here we are dealing with an environmental hazard that should have been eliminated long ago.

BSCIC sources have said that the government will soon sign a memorandum of understanding with the tannery owners and push the project ahead to its logical conclusion, that is, relocation of the tanneries. That is of course necessary to ensure a trouble-free shifting of the tanneries However, it is imperative that urgency and speed are not sacrificed in the course of bureaucratic planning which often ignores the time factor. The just demands of the tannery owners have to be met, but they must not be allowed to take advantage of the bureaucracy's inability to act decisively.

And that is a task that only the bureaucracy itself can perform. Successive governments in the past acknowledged that the tanneries were located dangerously close to residential areas; they also felt that something had to be done to push away the potent sources of pollution. But the environment-friendly thoughts were never translated into tangible action. Sadly, the bureaucracy did more to reduce the ideas into damp squibs, than to inject life into them.

Clearly, a deviation from practice, not theory, is needed to implement the relocation project according to the government's plan. Enough time has been wasted and people have been made to pay a high price. It is time the government responded to the issue with a sense of clarity and determination.