Nellore: Industrialists hardly care about environmental pollution and health hazards their units are causing to the people living in the vicinity of industries. However, a Nellore-based Industrialist and rice miller Piduru Kishore Reddy is an exception among his tribe.
Even before the outcry over the pollution from 60 odd parboiled rice mills located in and around Nellore City slowly emerging as an agitation, he embarked on the mission to prevent pollution from his 10 tonne capacity mill located at Navalackgarden in Nellore after noticing the ill affects of pollution on the people living in the neighbourhood.
He spent more than Rs 50 lakh to install pollution control equipment although the parboiled rice industry is in doldrums after Tamil Nadu captured the Kerala market, which is lifeline for millers of AP. Incidentally there was no pressure on him either from locals or the authorities concerned unlike now when he decided to take measures to protect the environment. To ensure proper functioning of the control equipment, Kishore Reddy had replaced some of the old equipment such as boilers though there is no one to buy the old ones worth more than Rs 30 lakh.
According to Mr Reddy, the main contributor for environment pollution is large quantity ash emitted from the rice husk fired boilers being used in the parboiled rice mills.The coal or husk fired boiler generates fly ash, susp-ended particulate matter, smoke, and oxides of carbon.
To overcome the problem, Mr Reddy installed dust collection chute in front of driers connecting it to decompressing chambers to collect fine particles of dust. He had also constructed ash and husk collection and storage chambers separately and connected all air vent pipes from rice mill to decompressing chambers of suitable sizes to collect fine dust. Sheds are being installed to cover the plant and machinery to contain any escaping dust.
Impressed by the dust free operations, two other parboiled rice mills located next to Kishore Reddy's mill also started installing pollution preventive machinery. Incidentally there is no standardisation of equipment and one has to fabricate it based on the size of the mill and extent of land available.
Mr Reddy said that millers are wary over spending huge sums since the business is very slack and rumours over moves to shift all the mills out of the City also discouraging them to invest on equipment. He sought some kind of assurance from authorities and politicians to motivate the millers to follow Pollution Control Board norms.
