Three days after the deadline expired, a visit to Agra found the offending industry managers nonchalant and government officials entrusted with implementing the minister's diktat, almost bemused. "The industries are where they were. How do you close down factories that are already closed?" asked S.R. Sanchar, regional officer, Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board. Indeed, the guilty 104 units are closed, but that's because they haven't complied with an earlier Supreme Court order to install pollution control devices. But, if and when they do, these factories may reopen, like the 404 functioning ones which were originally identified as emitting "noxious and harmful" fumes in the direction of one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The latter rarely make use of their Air Pollution Control Systems (APCS). The fact is that pollution control in Agra is often a variable of bribery. The sulphur dioxide level in the city, meanwhile, has reportedly increased from 3.54 mg/m cu in 1982 to around 30 mg/m cu at present.
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The Environment Ministry's clever circumvention of the solution offered by the Supreme Court means that for the present, there are not many alternatives. In its December 1, 1995 order, the apex court directed the Environment Ministry and the Uttar Pradesh authorities to plan the relocation of all the 508 polluting industries, in a phased manner, outside the Taj trapezium (a zone covering 10,400 sq km around the Taj Mahal, spread over the districts of Agra, Mathura and Firozabad). In consultation with the industry-owners, the environment minister seems to have deferred the relocation scheme and opted instead for the grand announcement of a crackdown after December 31. Which, of course, has turned out to be a bit of a hoax.
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The newly-transferred District Magistrate Ganga Ram, seemed clueless about implementing the ministry's order. "The matter is subjudice," was his evasive comment. The "monitoring cell", whose formation was grandly announced by the minister as part of the December 31 "Taj package", has not even been set up. While Additional District Magistrate (City) O.P.N. Singh claimed that industrialists had not come forward with their nominees, Kiran Dhawan, secretary of the Foundry Nagar Industries Association countered that the cell existed, but "only on paper". "If the health of the Taj did really concern the Government, it would do something about providing Agra with adequate electricity and alternative roads to cope with the mammoth traffic. The city suffers over 40,000 generators spewing pollution into the air for at least four hours every day and some 10,000 smoke-emitting trucks drive through the heart of the city daily. Killing for any city, let alone the one that houses the Taj Mahal," says Dhawan.
The list is unending. Industrialists point to the administration's indifference in diverting long-distance vehicular traffic by building a ring road, providing adequate electricity, revamping the city's obsolete sewage system and combating the threat posed by the Mathura Refinery.
If the industrialists have so far managed to escape the Supreme Court's noose, it is partly due to the Government's own lackadaisical approach. An expert panel headed by former science and technology secretary Dr S. Varadarajan in 1994 made a series of practical recommendations to ease traffic congestion and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The report, submitted in April 1995 to the Environment Ministry, continues to gather dust. Implementing the Varadarajan formula will no doubt cost money. But, assert the heritage-conscious, no price is too high to save the Taj.
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Levelling charges at the Government, however, will not save the marble monument. Neither will well-publicised announcements of vague orders and dates that bring the world press to Agra every once in a while. Urgent measures have to be taken to preserve the Taj.
Until the next deadline, then.
