Hyderabad: Swedish financial services group Nordea, in a report following its investigation on pharma pollution in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, severely criticised pharma companies and the Pollution Control Boards (PCB) of both states for wreaking environmental havoc in the two cities.

The report blamed the PCBs of both states as, “highly corrupt” and “working in cahoots” with the industries and raised concern over the Telangana government’s plans of establishing the 11,000-acre Pharma City.

The report also raised serious concern over “extreme lack of transparency regarding supplier-buyer relationships”, which makes it difficult to ascertain which foreign-based companies are purchasing drugs from these Indian pharma companies that are bent upon destroying the environment in two major and fast growing cities of TS and AP.

An important issue, that of pharma companies not allowing scrutiny of effluent treatment units and hazardous waste processing units by journalists was also raised.

The team of Nordea inspected sites of some globally known pharma firms in Hyderabad and Vizag including Aurobindo, Dr Reddy's, Hetero Drugs Ltd, and Mylan Laboratories Ltd, and in its report stated: “The pharmaceutical companies appear to act with more or less total impunity.”

The investigators found that there was no supply of clean source of drinking water in many places. The report also raised concern over the poor efficiency and lack of strict scrutiny by PCB at Jeedimetla and Patancheru Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETP) in Hyderabad, CETP at Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City in Vizag and the hazardous waste disposal facility of Ramky at Dundigal.