AM/NS India to invest Rs 273 crore on zero liquid discharge at Hazira

ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel joint venture has announced that it was in the process of investing Rs 273 crore for zero liquid discharge, other environmental initiatives at its Hazira steel complex

Amid concerns about trade effluent discharged into the Tapi estuary in Surat district from its steel plants at Hazira causing pollution beyond permissible limits, Arcelor-Mittal Nippon Steel India Ltd (AM/NS) has announced a Rs 273 crore investment for zero liquid discharge.

Recently, the Gujarat High Court (HC) had appointed the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IIT-Gn) as a court commissioner to find out if trade effluent discharged from AM/NS was causing pollution beyond permissible limits or not. The court had acted upon a public interest litigation filed by Surat-based environmental engineer Roshni Patel, who had alleged that the steel plant was discharging effluent into the river without properly treating it and causing damage to life in the estuary.

The institute was asked by the court to depute an environmental engineer to study the problem after the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), AM/NS and other concerned authorities failed to submit a timely response.

However, the ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel joint venture has announced that it was in the process of investing Rs 273 crore for zero liquid discharge and other environmental initiatives at its Hazira steel complex.

While the 14 km-long zero liquid discharge system is being set up at an investment of Rs 77 crore, another Rs 173 crore has been earmarked for the initial phase of an environment improvement roadmap plan, apart from Rs 12 crore for planting 360,000 trees in the Hazira plant complex.

The zero liquid discharge system will cover the entire Hazira plant, and is aimed at eliminating liquid waste by enabling reuse of the entire treated effluent with RO units. Contracts related to civil works and other contracts have already been awarded, and the system is expected to be completed by March 2023.

The plants covered in the first phase include Steel Making Plants 1 and 2, Hot Strip Mill, CRM-DSC, ASU, DRI-5-6, COREX 1-2, Plate mill, and INOX cryogenic Air Separation Unit (ASU).

"AMNS is committed to the best environmental norms and adopting green practices at our Hazira plant. We have undertaken various environmental improvement related projects which are in line with the global steel manufacturing standards," said Santosh Mundhada, Executive Director at AM/NS India in an official communique.

AM/NS India's environment improvement roadmap plan, on the other hand, includes measures to reduce the ambient dust level by installing various air pollution control measures in the plants, besides road strengthening, and deployment of more sweeping machines on the material handling roads, among other things.

"The plant’s greenbelt area will cross 33 per cent when the tree plantation campaign is completed by December. The increased greenbelt will also help in controlling the ambient dust level," Mundhada added.

Meanwhile, for mitigating sulphur emissions, AM/NS India is looking to make use of natural gas and coal with low sulphur content.

The company had earlier announced plans to increase its steelmaking capacity at Hazira from nine million tonnes per annum to 18 million tonnes with an investment of Rs 45,000 crore.