Industrialists planning to start polluting units in four districts of the State are unable to get the Consent to Establish (CTE) from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) as the government is not willing to relax norms.

According to TNPCB sources, the board has not taken any decision on the demand from industrialists to set up new units, including dyeing and fabric units, in Karur, Tirupur, Erode and Namakkal towns where water pollution has been a problem for a decade and more.

Revenue Department officials headed by Tiruchengode Revenue Division Officer (RDO) S. Kavitha surveyed four granite quarries in Paramathi Taluk on Wednesday. This included the two mines that were mined by the PRP group in Periyasolipalayam village near Kabilarmalai in Paramathi-Velur Taluk.

On August 31 the officials issued a notice to the two quarries run by the PRP group to stop mining till they obtained further directions from the District Collector. On Wednesday, the team started verifying if the granite stones were quarried within the boundary that was marked for mining.

A total of 12 illegal dyeing units were evicted in a drive carried out by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) at Iyangadu and Thattankuttai near Komarapalayam on Tuesday.

The Madras High Court Bench here on Monday ordered for production of licences granted by the Collectors of Namakkal, Karur, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Thiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts to the Public Works Department for quarrying sand along the stretches of rivers Cauvery, Amaravathi and Kollidam flowing through the six districts.

A Division Bench comprising Justice R. Banumathi and Justice G. . Akbar Ali passed the direction after it felt that the counter affidavits filed by the officials did not contain information sufficient for disposing of the case.

A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court Bench here to forbear the Public Works Department from carrying out sand quarrying operations along the stretches of rivers Cauvery, Amaravathi and Kollidam flowing through Namakkal, Karur, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Thiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts.

When the case came up for hearing before a Division Bench comprising Justice R. Banumathi and Justice G.M. Akbar Ali on Monday, the judges adjourned the case to July 9 as the lawyers representing the PIL petitioner, B. Juliaan (31) of Lalgudi Taluk in Tiruchi district, were not present in the court due to a boycott call given by one of the advocates’ association.

As part of the steps taken by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) to alleviate malnutrition among the tribal community living at Valappur atop Kolli Hills, the foundation has initiated rearing of carp fish in the private and community ponds in a people participatory mode, on Saturday.

“Nutrition deficiency diseases such as goitre, anaemia and calcium deficiency are visible among tribals on that hill and it could be brought down by adding fish as part of their diet,” Principal Investigator of the IDRC Alleviation of Poverty and Malnutrition Project of the MSSRF Mr. Siddick Abubacker told The Hindu .

Persons running the manual dyeing units on the Kaliyanoor Road protested the demolitions stating that the TNPCB spared the bigger units and targeted the manual dyers. TNPCB District Environmental Engineer (DEE) K. Gokuladas who headed the drive, told them that all illegal units would be removed without any bias.

The protestors then guided the TNPCB officials to a unit on a sugarcane field on the Kaliyanoor Road. “It would have been impossible to identify it without the help of the villagers. The unit with three winches was in a concrete building that looked like a house and was locked from outside,” the DEE said.

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday flagged off 826 buses on 304 routes across the State, through videoconferencing from the Secretariat, and handed over the keys for seven buses to the drivers.

While the first bus was operated from the CM’s constituency Srirangam to Trivandrum, buses on seven routes, including T Nagar-Koyambedu Bus Terminus (J27), Udumalai-Coimbatore, Namakkal-Coimbatore, Srivilliputhur- Thiruthangal, were operated in her presence.

Tamilaga Vivasayigal Livelihood Protection Committee has urged the Chief Minister to save farmers in Western Tamil Nadu from an “impending danger” to their livelihood that has come in the form of pipeline project by Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) from Kochi to Bangalore.

The pipeline on entering Tamil Nadu at Walayar would pass through agricultural lands in Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Namakkal, Salem, Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts.