Bare act

Bare act

Subject: Environment

Section: Environment  Legislation and environment body

Context:

• India’s legislative and regulatory framework, including the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act of 1974 and the Environmental (Protection) Act of 1986, aims to prevent the discharge of untreated industrial effluents into water bodies.

Details:

• Despite these measures and the Central Pollution Control Board’s (CPCB) guidelines, the effectiveness of these regulations remains unclear due to the lack of consolidated data on the generation and treatment of industrial effluents.
• A 2021 report to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) reveals fragmented data, with significant gaps in information across various states and Union Territories.
• This incomplete picture hampers the understanding of effluent management’s actual state, with large states like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Uttar Pradesh not providing comprehensive information.
• Regular inspections by State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) are mandated, yet the quality of these inspections and the enforcement of regulations are in question.
• Instances of industries, such as Malbros International in Punjab, illegally discharging untreated effluents highlight the challenges in effectively monitoring and penalizing violations.
• Efforts by the NGT to upgrade laboratories and ensure compliance have noted serious deficiencies in regulatory actions against waste management system violations.

Continuous effluent quality monitoring system (CEQMS):

• It is a real-time air and water pollution monitoring system.
• The introduction of the continuous effluent quality monitoring system (CEQMS) by CPCB in 2014, aimed at enhancing transparency and compliance through real-time pollution monitoring, has also faced issues with widespread non-compliance and data availability.
  • A continuous monitoring system is comprised of sampling, conditioning, and analytical components and software designed to provide direct, real- time, continuous measurements of pollution by analyzing representative sample(s) of air and water to be monitored.
  • It is an important tool for better compliance enforcement through credible pollution monitoring and reporting practices.
  • If installed properly, these systems can help to get accurate and real- time data at higher frequency with minimal manual intervention in order to strengthen the pollution control regime.
• As of 2023, data from many SPCBs/PCCs is either missing or inaccessible.
• Staff shortages significantly impact the capability of pollution control boards to enforce environmental regulations effectively, with a significant percentage of sanctioned posts remaining vacant.
• The Water Pollution Act and related regulations need updating to improve transparency and data availability.
• Unlike newer regulations for other types of waste, the current legal framework does not mandate the public availability of effluent data, further obscuring the situation and preventing informed action against water pollution.

Source: DTE