Cabinet clears project on restoring polluted sites

New Delhi, March 19: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) Friday approved a proposal for a USD 75.39 million World Bank-assisted project to develop a national programme for the rehabilitation of polluted industrial sites.

"The objective of the project is to develop a national programme for the remediation and rehabilitation of polluted sites by taking up four polluted sites in Andra Pradesh and West Bengal on a pilot basis," Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters after a CCEA meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The project will implemented for a period of five years.

"The project will support the development of an institutional and methodological framework for rehabilitation of highly polluted abandoned sites and build human and technical capacity in state agencies for taking projects for reducing the risk of contamination nearby," Chidambaram said.

On completion, the project will result in environmental benefits like improvement in water and air quality, improved hygienic conditions, health benefits such as reduction in water-borne, vector-borne diseases and economic benefits like employment generation during rehabilitation and remediation of contaminated sites.

It would also facilitate developing a National Plan for Rehabilitation of Pollution Sites (NPRPS), sustaining the process beyond the project period, Chidambaram said.