With corrupt officials at helm in the pollution control boards of both Hyderabad and Vishakhapatnam, the poisonous pollutants in soil, water and air released by pharma and other chemical manufacturing industries have crossed nearly 100 times more than the normal limits prescribed by the environmentalists.
In a survey report released by the Swedish financial series group Nordea, it severely criticised pharma companies and the pollution control boards (PCB) of both the states for wreaking environmental havoc in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Referring to the highly corrupt systems adopted by both the PCBs, the report blamed the authorities are working hand in glove with the pharma industries and raised concern that lack of transparency about the inspections of the PCB authorities is leading to suspicion over the claims of the PCB authorities and existing facts of rising pollution.
The report also raised concerns over the Telangana government’s plans to establish Pharma city over 11,000 acres of land on the outskirts of Hyderabad, while not much initiatives are taken to forecast and tackle the future pollutions problems that may impact the environment once the Pharma city is completed.
In addition to this, the report also raised serious concern over extreme lack of transparency regarding supplier-buyer relationships which makes it difficult to ascertain which foreign based companies are purchasing drugs from these Indian pharma companies that are bent upon destroying the environment in two major and fast growing cities of Vizag and Hyderabad.
The team of Nordea inspected sites of some globally known pharma firms in Hyderabad and Vizag including Aurobindo, Dr. Reddy’s, Hetero Drugs and Mylan Laboratories Limited and in its reported stated that the pharmaceutical companies appeared to act more or less of total impunity. The inspectors also found that there is no source of supply of clean drinking water in many places and raised concerns over the poor efficiency and lack of strict scrutiny by the PCBs in both the states.
According to the study, both the states are having the poisonous metal deposits such as arsenic, copper, chromium, lead vandium and zinc in higher proportions than the safe levels. For instance, the safe level deposit of copper in soil should be 92ppm, however it is found to have exceeded 600 times more in the soils surrounding the industrial areas. The industrial areas of Bollarma, Nacharma in Hyderabad and Jawahar pharma city in Vizag are surveyed to be highly polluted regions in both the states.