The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Monday constituted a committee of the pollution control boards and the district magistrate to investigate environmental violations by SMS Envoclean, which runs a biomedical plant at Govandi-Deonar. The green body, which heard residents’ plea for the first time in a year, directed the panel to submit an action-taken report within two months.
 
Residents of Govandi and Deonar had filed the petition at NGT in April 2022, alleging that tuberculosis (TB) in the area has aggravated because of the pollution caused by SMS Envoclean’s biomedical waste treatment plant at Shivaji Nagar. At the first hearing held on Monday, the NGT formed the panel comprising members of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and the district magistrate.

Residents’ long battle to move the Envoclean plant out of the city suffered a setback when the state government last year denied environmental clearance for shifting the facility to Khalapur in Raigad district. The relocation plan was then delayed for another two years. In their petition, residents said that the incidence of TB infections increased since Envoclean opened the plant in the area and further worsened in the past five years. The M East ward (Govandi, Deonar) is known as the TB hotspot of Mumbai.