CPCB to rank industrial units on pollution levels

NEW DELHI: The Central Pollution Control Board has reportedly started the process to rank 88 industrial clusters across the country for their pollution levels. The CPCB  recently completed the analysis of the levels based on air and water quality and hazardous waste generated by these clusters.

Once the industrial clusters are ranked for the pollution levels, the Union government will draw a comprehensive action plan to bring down the pollution levels in  these areas.

Way back in 2009-10, the state pollution boards along with the CPCB had  conducted surveys to check pollution levels in the 88-odd notified industrial clusters.

Later, the CPCB had ranked these clusters  under  critical and serious categories.

As many as 88 industrial clusters in 16 states  having Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index of 70 and above were identified as critically polluted areas.

These clusters inducled Sonbadhr Singrauli and Ghaziabad in UP,  Kobra in MP, Angultalchuer in Odisha, Bhadrabhati in Karnataka, Chandrapur and Chambur in Maharashtra, Dhanbad in Jharkhand, Durgapur in West Bengal  and Pali in Rajasthan. As many as 32 industrial clusters  with CEPI score between 60 and 70 were categorised as seriously polluted  areas.

After the ranking, the state pollution boards  had formulated their  action plans. Experts say that despite  the action plans,  there was hardly any improvement in the pollution levels in these clusters as a result of which the Union environment ministry had imposed a ban on opening new units and on expansion of existing industries in these areas. On the assurance of various state governments,  the ban was later lifted.

In 2016, CEPI was subsequently revised by the CPCB  to make the concept  of CEPI simple so as to facilitate  the citizens to evaluate  the CEPI score. Since the old CEPI  had some factors which were difficult  to monitor like potentially  affected pollution and assessment of health impact, the revised CEPI laid significant weight of 50 per cent of the observed quality of ambient environment in order to have a constant monitoring data of the ambient air  quality .

On April 26, 2016, the CPCB  issued directions under Section 18(1)(b) of the Water (Preventive and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and Air (Preventive and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 to undertake environmental quality monitoring.