With reference to the editorial in The Hindu on March 15, 2016 titled ‘ >Ensure a credible clean-up in Kodaikanal ’, Prasad Pradhan, Head, Corporate Communications, Hindustan Unilever Ltd writes:
The editorial presents a misleading perspective based on a flawed and incorrect understanding of the guidelines issued by the Central Pollution Control Board of India (CPCB), the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Government of India.
Referring to the draft guidelines issued by CPCB in 2015, the article states: “… the Ministry’s draft of 2015 proposes — a soil clean-up standard of 6.6 mg per kg for residential purposes …” We wish to clarify that this is absolutely incorrect. Neither the draft guidelines in 2015 nor the guidelines notified subsequently in January 2016 by CPCB make any such recommendation.
In fact, the CPCB guidelines notified in 2016 require site specific risk assessment for deciding remediation standard for contaminated sites. This is also global best practice. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board has followed this process to arrive at the remediation standard for our factory site in Kodaikanal.
The Scientific Experts Committee (SEC) appointed by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee and the Control Board of India has also approved this standard.
Based on this flawed understanding of the CPCB guidelines, the editorial recommends conducting a review of the ecological issues arising from any mercury residues in Kodaikanal. Extensive risk assessment studies conducted over the years by several expert institutions have concluded that a site-specific clean up standard of 20 mg/kg for soil remediation in the premises of the former factory of Hindustan Unilever Ltd is safe for both humans and ecology.