Same pollution norms for home and factory soon

By end 2009, India will set a uniform limit for pollution across the country, making no distinction between industrial and residential areas, sources in the ministry of environment and forests said, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 27, 2009, 02:32:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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By end 2009, India will set a uniform limit for pollution across the country, making no distinction between industrial and residential areas, sources in the ministry of environment and forests said.

At present, for instance, the amount of ‘Respirable, Suspended Particulate Matter’ (RSPM), a major pollutant, allowed in industrial areas is 120 unit grams per cubic metre (ug/m3), while the maximum tolerated in non industrial ones is only 60 ug/m3.

While earlier, industrial areas were usually located far away from residential ones in most cities, this is no longer the case. Both residential colonies and industries have expanded until they stand cheek by jowl.

“When the national ambient air quality norms were notified in 1994 most industrial areas were away from residential areas,” said a top environment and forest ministry official. “Now this is not the case. There cannot be two different air quality standards for citizens living side by side.

The two adjoining west Delhi suburbs of Janakpuri and Mayapuri are both equally polluted with RSPM levels of around 240 ug/m3. Janakpuri, however, is categorised a non industrial area, and Mayapuri, an industrial one. Thus the air in Janakpuri is regarded as four times more polluted than permissible — indeed Janakpuri is often cited as the most polluted area of the city — while Mayapuri is seen as only twice as polluted, though the residents of both localities are breathing much the same quality of air.

Of the 342 locations monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board, RSPM levels were higher than the norm in 78 per cent of the industrial areas and 87 per cent in the residential areas. What this conceals is that RSPM level in almost all industrial areas were higher than that in the residential zones.

For residential areas, the new norms are expected to remain same but the industry would have to adhere to more stringent norms. “Industry clusters will have to invest on pollutant trapping technologies to improve on overall emissions,” the official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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