CII for action against polluting industries

CHANDIGARH: With fingers being pointed at Punjab’s industry for polluting river waters, the Confederation of Indian Industry president B Muthuraman has made it clear that those breaking the norms should face the consequences. With the industry remaining the number one defaulter, the CII is now going to send a team of experts to Jalandhar, where villagers have revolted against the pollution of Kala Sanghia, to work out ways to mitigate the menace.
"CII is concerned about environment and whoever is indulging in breaking norms is not right and must be stopped. The issue was discussed in our meeting with industry on Saturday," said Muthuraman.
Speaking to TOI, Kamna Raj Aggarwalla, chairperson CII Punjab State Council said, "CII is looking towards energizing the problem and look for a via media for a functional solution. We have a huge battery of consultants, people of experience and what we are looking at in Punjab is to sit down with industrialists and have a face-to-face interaction about localized problems. We are looking at facilitating a solution rather than imposing an order."
In Chandigarh, after a gap of 28 years, Muthuraman said that projects are being initiated with governments of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan for development in the fields of agriculture, food processing, and information technology besides health care.
Chalking out new areas of focus, Muthuraman said that about 30 skill centres are being created at district level. "There is a human resource gap with unemployed people at one end and the industry facing manpower shortage because skilled workers are not available," he said.
Expecting the national growth to slow down to about 8.8%, Muthuraman said that even this was "reasonable". "I do expect the investment to slow down and margin of company’s to be squeezed. We need to correct inflation, make the governance more transparent and free of corruption to encourage global investors to come to India," he said.