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The ball rolls

  • 30/01/1997

The ball rolls The movement had several curious fallouts. Satya Narain Sharma, the minister for housing and environment, was relieved of the environment portfolio without much fanfare. As minister, he had staunchly defended Som distillery and had denied the opposition charge that Betwa's water was unfit for consumption. At the time, he had said that the findings of the mppcb committee were with the state government and it (the government) had the issue under conside ration. This seemed absurd, as according to set standards, the bod levels of effluent discharge on land are not to exceed 100 mg/l. According to data collected by the said committee, the bod levels in lagoon no 4 (as per land application) was 14,000 mg/l (140 times higher than permissible limits). If this startling information was merely

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