SPCBs were set up in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act. Over time, their mandate has extended to tackling air and noise pollution and managing hazardous waste.
In the past five years, several studies have documented the health and economic effects of pollution in India. These have underlined that bad air, poor quality water and tardy waste management are problems not just of big cities, they undermine the quality of life of people in Tier 2 and 3 cities as well. The problem does not stem from a lack of laws. Effective monitoring and implementation have been the Achilles heel in the battle against pollution. The problem, as an affidavit submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to the National Green Tribunal acknowledged, is that regulatory bodies have been chronically understaffed. Nearly half of all posts in state pollution control boards (SPCB) are vacant, some for decades. Nearly 54 per cent of the sanctioned posts in the National Capital Region, whose problems with bad air begin with the onset of the festive season in October and continue well into winter, are vacant.
SPCBs were set up in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act. Over time, their mandate has extended to tackling air and noise pollution and managing hazardous waste. However, environmental regulation has rarely kept pace with the demands of the post-liberalisation economy. The SPCBs haven’t just failed to fill up their sanctioned strength. They have also not done justice to their mandate by failing to rope in an adequate number of independent scientists in pollution control exercises. The autonomy of these agencies on technical issues is often compromised because civil servants and officials with a background in government, and not experts, hold most of the top posts. Moreover, the terms of the chairperson and member secretaries of these agencies vary from a year to three years — only in rare cases have these officials held a position for more than five years. Such short tenures are not ideal for developing long-term pollution abatement plans.
These problems have persisted for decades. Yet, there has been scarcely any attempt to delineate their underlying causes. In the past five years, even as the Centre has embarked on ambitious clean air, waste management and water quality improvement projects, it and the state governments have devoted very little attention to improving regulatory efficiency. A start can be made by leveraging some of the expertise in the country’s universities and technical institutions for environmental regulation. This could be a forerunner to increasing the financial and institutional autonomy of pollution control agencies.
