The National Green Tribunal has said the state authorities are not “serious in discharging their responsibilities” to stop the pollution of Santragachhi Jheel in Howrah and granted another six months to complete all work related to the preservation of the water body.

The order, in response to a petition filed by environment activist Subhas Datta, was passed on September 30 but was uploaded on the tribunal’s website on Tuesday.

“It may be noted that the case had been instituted on 18.01.2006 and the proposals and steps had concretised way back in the year 2017,” pointed out the principal bench of the tribunal comprising Justice S.P. Wangdi and expert member Nagin Nanda.

“We find it difficult to accept that the process would take such an inordinately long time. From this, we can only infer that the authorities had not been serious in discharging their responsibilities….” the bench observed.

However, taking into consideration the affidavits filed by various departments, the bench granted the state authorities six months to complete all work related to the preservation of the sprawling water body, which draws thousands of migratory birds every winter, and asked the authorities to submit a compliance report by April 4, 2021.

In June, the tribunal had directed the Bengal government, Howrah Municipal Corporation, Railway Board and Mackintosh Burn Limited to state what they had done over the past two-and-a-half-years in regard to the bench’s earlier order. In 2017, the bench had passed an order specifying the responsibilities of each agency in cleaning up Santragachhi Jheel.

The bench had stated in the 2017 order that the railways would provide land to set up a sewage treatment plant and the cost of the project would be borne by the Howrah civic body and the railways.

Untreated sewage now flows into the water body. The bench had ordered that the sewage, post-treatment, would have to be drained somewhere else.

In the 2017 order, the bench had assigned the responsibility of constructing the treatment plant to Mackintosh Burn, a state government company.

“Most of the pending issues have been sorted out, including that of the land,” government lawyer Bikas Kar Gupta told Metro.

“We are yet to receive any formal letter on land and other issues,” said a representative of South Eastern Railway.