Industries defying green norms: Report

Highly polluting industries, with majority of them being in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home State Gujarat, have been found to be defying green norms blatantly, according to a report released on Tuesday on the World Environment Day on Tuesday.

“Non-compliance of environment standards by the highly polluting industries has increased by over 100 per cent between 2010 and 2014,” said the report “State of Environment Report India 2015”, which was released by Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan at an event here to mark the D-day.

Gujarat, at 28.76 per cent, tops the distribution of hazardous waste in the country, followed by Maharashtra (25.16 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (19.71 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (4.74 per cent), said the report which also raised concerns over land contamination and hazardous waste in India.

According to the report, in 2014, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) identified 3,266 units under 17 categories of Highly Polluting Industries (HPI) out of which 2,328 are compliant, 571 industries are non-compliant and 367 industries have been closed down. The report shows that while there were 253 non-complying HPI in 2010, it increased to 571 by 2014.

“Comparative analysis of compliance status of 17 categories of highly polluting industries for the period 2010-14 indicates that 71 per cent of the total industries have adequate pollution control facilities to ensure compliance with regulations, and this trend remains unchanged in the same period.

“However, the percentage of non-compliance has increased from 10 per cent in 2010 to 17 per cent in 2014,” stated the report.

It said that non-compliance with regulations mandating pollution technology has been rising in cement, distilleries, iron and steel, power plants and sugar industries.

As of 2014, the report says, there are 3,260 highly polluting industries of which only 929 industrial units have installed pollution controlled devices, and 920 industrial units have installed 24X7 real-time monitoring systems.

According to experts, compliance with the emission standards had always been at the back-foot in India.

In December 2015, the Government issued new emission standards for coal fired power plants, with December 2017 as deadline for compliance. However to the date, not a single of 160 power plant or the around 400 units comply.