In a powerful ruling that could increase transparency and thus, industry compliance, India’s National Green Tribunal has directed all pollu...
In a powerful ruling that could increase transparency and thus, industry compliance, India’s National Green Tribunal has directed all pollution control boards to chart and share detailed data from continuous emissions and effluents monitoring systems or OCEMS from specific polluting industrial units by April 9.
The tribunal, set up 11 years ago specifically for expeditious disposal of cases pertaining to environmental issues, was following up on a Supreme Court order from 2017 directing all Indian states to install OCEMS and make their industrial emissions data publicly available – something several states have still not done.
Last year, Indian non-profit Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment reported that of the 32 pollution control boards that were required to comply with the Supreme Court direction, half had not even created online continuous emission monitoring portals until 2020. Of the 16 states which have complied with the judgement, only 38% allow users to access and assess historical data, the initiative noted.
Subsequently, Indian environmental lawyer and LIFE founder Ritwick Dutta filed a case against four southern Indian states, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and the union territory of Puducherry, accusing them of non-compliance. This led to the March 9 ruling by the National Green Tribunal, which gave industry one month...
