Pollution Control And The Clean Air Act - amazonia.fiocruz.br

Pollution Control And The Clean Air Act Video

A man transports goods on his cycle cart near the parliament on a smoggy morning in New Delhi, India, November 10, Almost 40 years ago, India passed a law to control air pollution.

However, as northern India Pollution Control And The Clean Air Act another air pollution emergency, it is yet another year of reckoning for the law that is all but forgotten. The law gave sweeping powers to state and central governments to take action to improve air quality, enforce pollution control measures, shut down errant industries, and send polluters to jail. Over the years, however, the law has seen a decline in its relevance, even as Indian cities climbed to top positions in global air pollution assessments, the latest being the State of Global Air Almost zero cases have been filed under the Air Act from northern Indian states in recent years, even though they face the worst pollution every winter. Even the Supreme Court and governments have ignored the law; measures like the Graded Response Action Plan or the Odd-Even scheme rely on other laws or regulations, some of which have nothing to do with the environment. As pollution spikes in the winter season, parliamentarians, lawyers or activists demand amendments to it or to replace it with a new law, usually to add powers of enforcement.

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Experts note that beyond the lack of powers there is an ignored need to bring the Air Act up to date with modern sources of pollution. And though the Air Act may be old, it certainly has a few sharp teeth left if the government is willing to bite. It was passed to comply with promises made at the landmark UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in where Indira Gandhi had delivered a celebrated speech connecting poverty with pollution. The Air Act converted these into Pollution Control Boards with a wide range of powers over industrial activities including the power to conduct search and seizure operations and take samples. They can also order a factory to stop operating or cut its electricity and water connections.

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For instance, no industry can be set up without permission from these boards. Industries need separate permission to start operations, and another for every time there is Pollution Control And The Clean Air Act change to the production process. Every permission contains instructions to install pollution control devices, put up pollution monitors, display latest pollution levels on a notice board, etc. The pollution control boards can also file criminal cases against factory owners or employees who may end up spending up to seven years in jail for causing air or water pollution. One of the criticisms of the Air Act has been that it has mainly focused on large and obvious sources of pollution like factories and power plants and did not cover dispersed sources of pollution like landfills, agricultural fields, vehicles and households — which have emerged as sources of air pollution. For example, a study by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in said that dust was probably the biggest polluter.

When the law was framed and passed inthese were just not areas of concern, Ghosh said, and the Act has not been amended to respond to the evolving ground realities. The law has also not kept up with new ways of measuring air pollution.

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The data goes straight to the pollution control board but the data itself does not qualify as legal evidence under the Air Act. The law still requires samples to be physically collected by officials and analysed in an accredited laboratory.

So even if the emissions system shows excessive emissions, the board cannot use it as evidence to file a case against the factory. These add to the difficulties already faced in gathering air evidence. Bhat said that in the early years, the pollution control boards were enthusiastic Th prosecuting polluters, leading to landmark cases like Mahabir Coke Industry ]