Bolisetty urges Andhra Pradesh High Court to constitute high level committee to assess coastal pollution

Jal Biradari national convener Satyanarayana Bolisetty has petitioned the High Court to constitute an independent high-power committee, excluding serving officials, to quantify coastal damage caused by polluting industries and alleged official inaction over the past decade.

Addressing a media conference in Visakhapatnam on Saturday, Mr. Bolisetty, who is pursuing WP(PIL) No. 248 of 2020, referred to the discharge of untreated sewage into the sea at Lawson’s Bay Colony and industrial pollution at Thadi village. He alleged that State authorities had shown systemic ecological neglect for nearly 10 years and called upon people to resist what he described as a toxic assault on the coastline stretching from Srikakulam to Kakinada.

He claimed that pollution was destroying marine wealth valued at lakhs of crores, while industries were making profits running into only a few hundred crores. The pollution, he said, was also leading to a high incidence of cancer cases in Thadi village near Visakhapatnam, with almost every household reportedly affected. He further alleged that villagers were suffering from chronic skin diseases due to contamination of groundwater and that there had been a rise in miscarriages.

Mr. Bolisetty recalled that Deputy Chief Minister K. Pawan Kalyan, who also holds the Environment portfolio, had expressed concern over the high incidence of cancer cases in Thadi village during a recent meeting with officials.

The Jal Biradari national convener demanded a scientific audit into the alleged release of 200 MLD of untreated sewage into the sea every day by the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation since 2014. Though he had filed the PIL in 2020, no action had been taken so far, he said, and questioned why the officials concerned should not be penalised or dismissed from service.

He appealed to the court to ensure that government officials were strictly excluded from the proposed committee to guarantee impartiality and said the panel should be mandated to assess the cumulative environmental loss over the last one decade. Alleging prolonged failure of duty by officials, Mr. Bolisetty also urged the public to send GPS-tagged photographs and videos of pollution to (bolisettysatyanarayana@gmail.com) to pursue the matter to its logical end as part of the ongoing PIL.