Air Pollution
DoE orders closure of re-rolling mills, fines Tk 40 lakh
Environment department ordered closure of two steel re-rolling mills at Demra in the capital yesterday on charge of polluting air and other anomalies.
Mohammad Munir Chowdhury, director of Department of Environment (DoE), handed down the penalty and fined them Tk 40 lakh as an enforcement team detected those had been running for a decade without environmental clearance.
The mills penalised were Mohana Steel and Re-rolling Mill Ltd and Zahir Steel and Re-rolling Mills Ltd.
The steel mills are regarded as 'red category' industries in the environmental conservation law and highly pollutant and hazardous for environment, but the owners have been operating the mills without setting up legally mandatory fume extraction system.
They had so far released more than one lakh cubic meters of polluted air containing metals like lead and chromium extremely hazardous for public health, said Munir, adding that an instant examination found 725 microgram suspended particles in the local air while tolerable level in Bangladesh was 200 micrograms.
The mill owners also evaded Tk 20 lakh government revenue, he said.
The DoE director fined Mohana Steel and Re-rolling Mill owner Haji Nurul Islam Tk 25 lakh and Zahir Steel and Re-rolling Mills owner Md Zahirul Islam Tk15 lakh.
He also ordered closure of the mills and wrote to Board of Investment, Bangladesh Bank and Power Development Board for cancellation of the mills' registration, bank loan and electricity connection.
"Pollution level in the steel mill sector is dreadful," he told The Daily Star, "Entrepreneurs in the sector cannot be rectified without stringent enforcement of law."
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