Continuous ambient air quality monitoring systems are to be installed at two locations in the city in the first week of next month. Officials of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) said the equipment, each costing around Rs.70 lakh, would be installed at IIT-Madras, near the Velachery gate of the campus, and Metropolitan Transport Corporation depot in Alandur. The systems would be installed by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Even as the Goa Pollution Control Board has de-sealed 29 stone crushers at the Sao Jose de Areal belt, local residents have demanded strict monitoring of the dust pollution before any permission is granted for the crushers to re-commence full-fledged operations.

The problem of air and water pollution in the vicinity of Kharikat canal is so complex that even the committee formed by AUDA and AMC to resolve the issue in 2002 expressed helplessness before the Gujarat High Court then. A division bench headed by Justice BC Patel was surprised to know that the committee made a grievance before the court, as authorities rendered no assistance to it for carrying out court's directions. However, the issue continued to be debated in the High Court and directions were issued time and again.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today constituted a task force consisting of officers from Punjab State Pollution Control Board, Punjab State Council for Science and Technology and Water Supply and Sewerage Board to prepare a blue print for making Sirhind canal free from pollution to achieve the objective of "safe drinking water for all'.

What Erin Brockovich, a twice-divorced mother of two and a legal clerk, did to the small South Californian town Hinkley by taking on a corporation as huge as PG&E is part of American activism history Sukinda, in Orissa, has . not been as lucky despite scores of citizens' reports, environment assessment studies and a green brigade's non-relenting crusade.

ONE month is all a government department gets to furnish information under the right to information (RTI) Act. Instead, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) has allegedly used that period to persuade an applicant to withdraw his petition. On March 19 this year, S Samayan of T Kallupatti natural resource protection committee filed an RTI application seeking information on stone crushers in Kilankulam, Vannivelanpatti and Ammapatti panchayats at T Kallupatti in Madurai.

The ambitious plan to decentralise the garbage disposal at four different places in the city received a boost with the forest department finally giving its approval to set up a garbage disposal plant in Punawale. This will enable the city to have four garbage disposal plants in different parts of the city as against the present system of the lone dumping ground at Urali Devachi village.

Inability of hospital authorities in Srinagar to handle patients care properly; the hospitals have now come under scanner vis-

NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE: Pollution, congested development and lack of a railway system such as the MRTS are depriving residents of north Chennai of quality life. A picture of contrast between Tondiarpet and Saidapet. The lines dividing north and south Chennai are not only drawn across access to quality healthcare, education or the standard of living but also physically drawn by the Railways.

Residents of Kharkhatiaghati-Sanguem led by Santano Rodrigues, Nilesh Dessai and Laxman Chauhan have complained to the High Court over the dumping of garbage by Curchorem Cacora Municipal Council (CCMC) in violation of the guidelines laid down by Goa State Pollution Control Board. According to reports, the letter states that CCMC is dumping the garbage openly behind the Sanguem Court, without covering the dumped garbage.