Guransh Distillery Pvt Ltd is a stone´s throw away from Chandrauta bazaar, and Naudihawa, Sundarpur, Pragatinagar, and Sahaj and Laxmi neighborhood of Shivapur VDC-6.
An Armed Police Force battalion stationed near the factory has also been affected.
“All the sugarcane extracts and other liquor by-products are dumped by our doorsteps, and we have been dealing with this problem for years now,” said Sharad Nepali, a local resident.
“Even the passers-by think twice before using the market thoroughfares after seeing the factory´s garbage heaped along the roadside,” added Nepali.
Two large landfill sites had been dug to dump distillery´s solid wastes, but they have already outgrown, said Pankaj Thapa, another local resident.
According to a source, the distillery has been manufacturing liquors without proper environmental technology, which could trap the toxic fumes bellowing from the plants.
“The saw dust used in the boilers doesn´t burn completely and it ends up inside our houses,” said Rekha Thapa, another local resident. “The Smoke emitting from their chimneys stain our clothes and they cannot be washed off easily,” added Thapa.
“We have filed several complaints against the distillery management through the support of the local administration - but to no avail,” said Thapa.
Manager of the distillery, Yam Prasad Pandey, however, refuted the allegations that the management is not doing enough to control the pollution.
He said that they have been dumping the solid wastes at the landfill site at Suwarbarwa forest area on a regular basis.
“However, some of the solid wastes get seeped out of the tankers while we transport them to the dumping sites. As for the odor, we have been spraying phenol regularly,” Pandey added.
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