The bulk drug manufacturers in Andhra Pradesh have urged the state government to allow the units to inter-change the volume of production on each item without reducing the effluent load correspondingly which the state pollution control board is not allowing.

At present, whenever the industry wants to increase its production in a particular item of bulk drug, Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) is not giving clearance for excess production unless effluent load is reduced correspondingly, which is not a correct interpretation of Pollution Control Act & Rules.

The Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (BDMA) president M Narayana Reddy said that the industry should be left free to increase or decrease the quantity of production of a particular item, if such act doesn't result into any additional generation of pollution load beyond the originally sanctioned.

The industry can increase or decrease the quantity of production so long as it doesn't exceed the overall permissible volume of pollution load.

A BDMA delegation had recently met the state minister for forests and environment Ramachandra Reddy and sought his intervention in the matter for a lasting solution to the lingering issue. The BDMA asked the minister to advice the APPCB not to reject such demands. Bulk Drug market is highly dynamic and it has to meet the market demand which is frequently fluctuating. The industry should be left free to produce with permission to inter-change the volume of production on each item, Reddy said.

The BDMA is also upset over the government's apathetic attitude towards its plea for a revisit of the Joint Action Plan for rationalizing the stringent impracticable and unviable parameter standards imposed by APPCB. The BDMA wanted the APPCB to re-visit the outlet standard of CETPs (common effluent treatment plants) to avoid any energy inefficient operations by the units as was recommended by the Peer & Core committee way back in the year 2002.

In fact, in this connection when this matter was brought to the notice of the chief secretary by the representatives of our member units in their meeting held with him in his chamber on January 10, 2008 he had advised APPCB to re-visit the Joint Action plan in consultation with CPCB and place the matter before the Board of APPCB. But unfortunately, no further action has been taken, the BDMA regretted.