A public interest litigation was filed in the High Court recently against the state government, seeking directions to the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) to rectify its faulty norms in according permission for setting up industries without studying the impact on bio-diversity and greenery. The PIL disputed the norms of the APPCB for setting up an industrial unit. It maintained that the PCB studied how the proposed industrial unit would show an impact on human beings once it became operational but failed to take up a study on how liquid effluents, gaseous emissions and other forms of emissions from the unit would have an impact upon the neighbouring bio-diversity, ecology and greenery. The PIL raised concern over the upcoming pharmaceutical park at Paravada in Visakhapatnam where a large number of bulk drug units are coming up. Effluents from these units would pollute the groundwater tables in the vicinity and also marine life as they were being discharged into the sea after treating them. The city-based environmentalist, Dr T. Patanjali Sastry, who filed the PIL in High Court asked whether there was any scientific study on the possible impact upon the environment, due to setting up a number of pharma units at Paravada. He said, "We are not against setting up industries. We ask that there should be a scientific study on the impact on various factors like bio-diversity and ecology, before giving permission. Moreover, there is no effective monitoring mechanism with government to ensure compliance even with the existing safety norms." The fire accident at Siris in Hyderabad was the result of the failure of entire mechanisms ranging from faulty selection of location for setting up the unit to ignoring safety norms while running it. Discharge of fly ash into the air from the Simhadri thermal power plant at Visakhapatnam was also another instance where people living in the vicinity were facing health hazards from effluents. He said, "The threshold limits of the PCB are faulty as they confine only to the health of human beings, ignoring other vital aspects in the environment. Though the PCB has worked out 33 parameters for every micro-watershed area based on a geographical information system, there is no proper monitoring mechanism to ensure compliance of norms."