Impacts of pharmaceutical pollution on communities and environment in India
Swedish financial services group Nordea, in a report following its investigation on pharma pollution in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, severely criticised pharma companies and the Pollution Control Boards (PCB) of both states for wreaking environmental havoc in the two cities. The report blamed the PCBs of both states as, “highly corrupt” and “working in cahoots” with the industries and raised concern over the Telangana government’s plans of establishing the 11,000-acre Pharma City. The report also raised serious concern over “extreme lack of transparency regarding supplier-buyer relationships”, which makes it difficult to ascertain which foreign-based companies are purchasing drugs from these Indian pharma companies that are bent upon destroying the environment in two major and fast growing cities of TS and AP. An important issue, that of pharma companies not allowing scrutiny of effluent treatment units and hazardous waste processing units by journalists was also raised.