BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa State Pollution Control Board on Sunday decided to seal 60 hotels in Puri for allegedly violating pollution norms laid down by the National Green Tribunal.

OSPCB regional officer (Bhubaneswar) Hadibandhu Panigrahi said the board was asked by the NGT to slap closure notice on the hotels on May 5. "Despite repeated reminders, the hotels have not applied for the mandatory 'consent to operate' (CTO)," he said. "According to an NGT directive, we had given two weeks' time to the hotels."

The move came a day after Uttarakhand's State Pollution Control Board sealed a five-star hotel in Haridwar for allegedly polluting the Ganga with untreated waste water.

READ ALSO: Bakeries in city residential units spark pollution worry

OSPCB sources said 217 hotels in the beach town would be served closure notices. This excludes hotels which moved the Orissa HC against the pollution board decision. The HC has stayed the closure. "We had identified 300 hotels which didn't apply for the consent," Panigrahi said. "Within two weeks, some hotels submitted the application. So, we have excluded them from closure list."

Besides not obtaining the consent, the hotels in question are also allegedly discharging untreated waste water into the sea near Bankimuhan in Puri. "The liquid waste contains high level of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), a chemical content that reduces oxygen," he said.

After the pollution board launched a drive to seal the hotels last year, some of them moved the Orissa HC challenging the move. "The hotel association is opposing the BOD standard fixed by the pollution board," said the senior pollution board officer. "We have fixed the BOD at 75 mg per litre of water." The hotel association argues that Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, has set the BOD limit at 350 mg per litre of water. "But the state board has power to reduce the limit based on local conditions," he said.

READ ALSO: Pollution: Hoteliers move HC

The NGT gave the direction while hearing a petition of environment campaigner Subash Dutta. However, information obtained by RTI campaigner Tapan Kumar Mohanty revealed that only 18 out of the 525 hotels in the town were operating with the mandatory CTO.

