Industry Categories (Based on pollution)

Subject: Environment

Context:

Madras High Court rejected a plea by Vedanta-owned Sterlite Copper seeking permission to reopen its massive copper smelter in the southern port city of Thoothukudi.
Concept :

• The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has developed the criteria of categorization of industrial sectors based on the Pollution Index.
• Pollution Index is a function of the emissions (air pollutants), effluents (water pollutants), hazardous wastes generated and consumption of resources.
• The Pollution Index PI of any industrial sector is a number from 0 to 100 and the increasing value of PI denotes the increasing degree of pollution load from the industrial sector.
• The following criteria on the range of Pollution Index for the purpose of categorization of industrial sectors are finalized.
  • Red category– Industrial Sectors having Pollution Index score of 60 and above. These are severe polluting industries. Total 60 industries including sugar, thermal power plants, paints and others are under in it.No Red category of industries shall normally be permitted in the ecologically fragile area / protected area.
  • Orange category– Industrial Sectors having Pollution Index score of 41 to 59. They moderately polluting industries. Total 83 industries like coal, washeries and automobile servicing are placed under it.
  • Green category– Industrial Sectors having Pollution Index score of  21 to 40. They are significantly low polluting industries. Total 63 industries are under in it.
  • White category – Industrial Sectors having Pollution Index score including &upto 20. They are non-polluting industries. Total 30 industries are under in it. These industries are exempted from requirement of environmental clearance.