ENVIRONMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT
- The Ministry has used Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2006 as a major tool for minimizing the adverse impact of development on environment.
- The developmental projects have been re-categorised into Category ‘A’ and Category ‘B’ depending on their threshold capacity and likely pollution potential, requiring prior Environmental Clearance (EC) from MoEFCC or the concerned State Environmental Impact Assessment Authorities.
- Further the notification provided for screening, scoping, public consultation and appraisal of project proposals.
- EIA notification has been amended in December, 2009. It exempts the biomass based power plants up to 15 mw, power plants based on non-hazardous municipal solid waste and power plants based on waste heat recovery boilers without using auxiliary fuel from the EC process.
ABATEMENT OF POLLUTION
- Government earlier adopted the Policy for Abatement of Pollution in 1992, which provides multi-pronged strategies like regulation, legislations, agreements, fiscal incentives and other measures to prevent and abate pollution.
- The Government also adopted National Conservation Strategy and Policy Statement on Environment and Development, 1992.
- Afterwards, the Government adopted the National Environment Policy (NEP-2006) which seeks to extend the coverage.
CENTRAL POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD (CPCB)
The activities of the CPCB include:
- Coordinating activities of State Pollution Control Board/Pollution Control Committees for prevention and control of pollution.
- Development of industry specific environmental guidelines.
- Development of charter for Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Protection.
- Surveillance monitoring of 17 category/grossly polluting industries.
- National ambient air quality monitoring and publishing annual air quality reports.
- Carrying out and sponsoring research activities relevant to environment protection.
- Publishing guidelines and material relevant to environment protection.
HAZARDOUS WASTE: TREATMENT, STORAGE & DISPOSAL FACILITIES (TSDFS)
- TSDFs provide for disposal of hazardous waste (HW) in environmentally sound and techno-economical viable manner.
- Common TSDFS are facilities used by various units/industries for treatment, storage and disposal of their hazardous wastes on charge basis.
- These are useful for small and medium scale hazardous waste generating industries which cannot set up their own TSDFs.
- The common TSDFS may have only secured landfill facilities or both secure land facilities and incineration facilities. The latter are called “Integrated common TSDFs.”
- There are 36 common hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFS) in the country.
- There are 17 integrated TSDFs having both incineration and secured landfill facilities, 13 TSDFS having secured landfill facilities only and 8 facilities having only common incineration facilities in the country.
- The existing TSDFs have a cumulative capacity of about 32 million Metric tons for secure landfill of hazardous waste and about 18 million tones/annum for incinerable hazardous waste.
- There is adequate capacity for recycling of the hazardous waste listed in Schedule-IV of HWM Rules such as used batteries, used oils and waste oils.
- Rule 11 of the Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, stipulates that “The utilization of hazardous wastes as a supplementary resource shall be carried out by the units only after obtaining approval from the Central Pollution Control Board” (CPCB).
BIOMEDICAL WASTE (BMW) MANAGEMENT
- The Biomedical Waste (Management & Handling) Rules, 1998 and amendments thereof (referred as BMW Rules) were notified under the Environment Protection Act, 1986 by the Ministry in 1998 and further amendments were made in the year 2000 and 2003.
- As per the said Rules, State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBS)/Pollution Control Committees (PCCS) in the respective States/UTs have been notified as the ‘prescribed authority’ for overall enforcement of the said Rules.
