VietNamNet Bridge – Hundreds of production workshops have been relocated out of the inner city under a program initiated by the HCM City local authorities. However, the pollution remains a headache to the city’s authorities because the workshops continue causing pollution in the areas they have moved to.

In 2002, HCM City kicked off the plan on removing 1,400 polluting production workshops to the industrial zones and suburb areas. However, not many things have been done over the last long period of 10 years, while the environment remains polluted.

A lot of production workshops have not been relocated as requested by the city’s authorities. Meanwhile, the others have begun causing pollution in the new areas where they have settled down, because they continue using backward production technologies.

The 31 washing and dying workshops in Dong Hung Thuan ward of district 12 have reportedly discharged emission and waste water to the environment, causing the pollution to the residential quarters nearby. More than 600 production workshops, big and small, in Binh Chanh district, have also caused pollution to the locality.

A report showed that 2 out of the 37 big production workshops have not moved from the inner city, though the relocation was decided by the Prime Minister in 2003 already. These include the Ha Tien Cement Plant and the Ba Son Shipyard. This is because no reasonable places have been found for the workshops to move to.

According to Nguyen Toan Thang, Deputy Chair of District 12, a lot of production workshops were told from the inner city to the suburb areas, but they have been just instructed to move to the concentrated industrial zones because of the heavy pollution they have caused.

Ngo Tan Thanh, a local resident in Dong Hung Thuan ward of district 12, complained that local people many times lodged a complaint to the competent agencies, but they have got no reply. The enterprises have been discharged waste water and produced smoke, polluting the Tham Luong canal seriously.

A lot of polluting production workshops have also been existing in the districts 7, Binh Tan, Thu Duc and Tan Phu.

A senior official of the district’s authorities said that big enterprises themselves really want to move to industrial zones and export processing zones in the city, but most of them have been refused due to different reasons.

Meanwhile, small production workshops cannot relocate themselves because of the lack of money. The premises in industrial zones are not suitable to them, because they need to lease at least 5,000 square meters, while they just need several hundreds of square meters of land only.

Ta Quoc Dan, Deputy Head of the Le Minh Xuan Industrial Zone’s Management Board, confirmed that the management board needs to be considerate when leasing land to enterprises.

The enterprises which want to lease land in the industrial zone are the ones that cause environment pollution, such as textile or dying. The enterprises are believed to continue causing pollution in the new areas once the infrastructure is yet to be ready enough.

HCM City’s Vice Mayor Le Manh Ha stressed that the city’s authorities won’t allow the polluting workshops to exist. However, to date, only the district 12’s authorities have committed to relocate all the polluting workshops by the end of 2014.

Thien Nhien