LG Polymer Tragedy: Ease of Doing Business comes at environmental cost

An outrage to shut down LG Polymers plant is growing with people from various walks demanding strict action against the criminal negligence.

Hyderabad:An uproar for the closure of Visakhapatnam based LG Polymer is augmenting as eleven people, were killed and over 1,000 are sick after styrene gas leaked in the wee hours.

LG Polymer was given NOC (No Objection Certificate) two years ago to expand despite failure to comply with environmental norms. The management has been blamed for the major accident and stringent actions are being demanded against the officials who accorded the clearances to the company to go ahead with the expansion.

Sources say the chemicals sector is de-licensed, except for a few hazardous chemicals and the government seemed to have diluted environmental legislation to make business easy, which is having multifarious impacts on the country’s environment.

Former MLA Palla Srinivasa Rao said the management had not yet taken up responsibility for the accident and did not bother to provide rescue and relief operations for the victims.

Further, social activist and former IAS officer E.A.S. Sarma demanded severe action against the management and said foreign companies like this one were moving into India as the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in the name of “easing business” were progressively relaxing the environment clearance procedures and encouraging polluting industries to set shop in the country.