Green glare on Tarapith hotels

KOLKATA: National Green Tribunal’s Kolkata bench on Friday asked for closure of 235 hotels at Tarapith for polluting the Dwarka river.
In an interim order, the bench presided over by Justice Pratap Kumar Roy and Prof Promod Chandra Mishra asked for immediate closure of the hotels and asked the district magistrate of Birbhum to submit a compliance report within seven days.
Activist Joydeep Mukherjee of All-India Legal Aid Forum had filed a petition complaining about pollution in Tarapith, particularly as the hotels were discharging their sewage in the river.He had even complained that the environment was being polluted further in Tarapith in the absence of an electric crematorium there.
Mukherjee had stated that more than 400 hotels throw their waste on the river. Even the temple authority dumps heaps of flowers, choking the river.
The court wanted to know how fast a treatment plant could be set up in the area to make Tarapith pollution free. In his affidavit before the court, chief secretary Sanjay Mitra stated that the huge waste generated by hundreds of hotels in Tarapith along with commercial establishments and houses are dumped on the Dwarka river. “The holy temple lies in a panchayat area and it is difficult for the panchayats to manage the huge load of waste,” he stated.
Mitra also stated that 38 hotels were operating without licence.
Birbhum DM PMK Gandhi said that the National Green Tribunal directive had to be complied with. “We have already informed the court to set up pollution control measures such as an electric crematorium. But, it will take some time.”
He is also worried as the closure of the hotels will create a major chaos as the rush of pilgrims takes place on weekends and the closure would also leave people jobless.