Apathy of pharma industry and its effects on surface water ecology

Increase in global demand for drugs has made pharmaceutical industry one of the major polluters of the environment. India is known as ‘Pharmacy of the World’ and over 30 per cent of 5,000 pharmaceutical units operating in India are located in the two Telugu states, mostly in and around Hyderabad, the joint capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Telangana government aspires to leverage the life sciences and pharmaceutical sector and create a USD 100 billion industry in the coming decade. Hyderabad city has no outlet for sewage and wastewater disposal other than Musi, Hyderabad city discharges about 600 million litres of untreated sewerage water into Musi River per day converting it into a sewage canal, with a very grave river ecology, and a source of contamination for the ground waters around the areas of Musi.