Ghaziabad: After acting against pollution in the Yamuna by shutting nearly 250 illegal industrial units, the district administration has now shifted its focus to the Hindon river. Authorities have begun a survey of industrial units in Kanawani, Arthala, Hindon and Nandgram to identify those discharging untreated effluents into drains that ultimately flow into the river.
Over the past few days, the district administration, acting in coordination with the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board and the electricity department, sealed more than 250 units — most of them dyeing operations in Loni and Sahibabad — found to be releasing untreated industrial effluents into the Shahdara drain, which flows into the Yamuna.
District magistrate Ravindra Kumar Mander said the drive was part of a broader effort to act against industries that have operated illegally in the district for years. The crackdown follows an affidavit filed by UP chief secretary Shashi Prakash Goyal before the National Green Tribunal on April 28, which stated that 888 unauthorised colonies across six districts — 258 of them in Ghaziabad — discharge around 40 million litres of sewage daily into the Hindon.
Officials said several industrial units operate within these unauthorised colonies in the city, and the current survey aims to map their footprint and assess the extent of damage to the river ecosystem. A senior UPPCB official said the location of these units in residential zones made enforcement harder, as it allowed operators to manipulate records and resume work after sealing. “One of the major problems is that some industries begin operating again even after being sealed, in several cases by restoring electricity connections. We are now disconnecting the power supply at the time of sealing and maintaining detailed records of each action,” the official said.
He stressed that effective enforcement required inter-departmental coordination. “We alone cannot identify all polluting industries. We have requested a complete list of industrial connections from the electricity department. We also need to verify whether pollution-control equipment is installed and functioning,” he added.
Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Authority regional manager Pradeep Kumar Satyarthi said the Hindon belt hosts a diverse mix of units, including engineering, fabrication and plastic manufacturing operations. “We estimate around 500 industrial units are operating in the area, a majority of them falling under the Mohan Nagar industrial belt,” he said, adding that water-intensive industries, where manufacturing units require large quantities of water for their operations, were concentrated along the Meerut Road industrial corridor.
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