Urges officials to
be proactive, interactive
SRINAGAR, JULY 20: Advisor
to Governor K Vijay Kumar today stressed on the officials of the State
Pollution Control Board to be more active, responsive and interactive while
performing their duties of enactment of various laws of Environment protection.
He said this
while reviewing the functioning and the performance of State
Pollution Control Board (SPCB). The meeting was attended by Commissioner
Secretary Forests, Saurabh Bhagat, Chairman State Pollution Control Board, B
Siddhartha Kumar, Secretary SPCB, BM Sharma, Regional Director SPCB and other
senior officers of the Board.
On the occasion the
meeting was informed that Board has switched over to on-line Consent Management
and Monitoring System to ensure transparency and speedy disposal of consent
cases for setting up new industrial units. Officials informed that the move has
further eased the process for young entrepreneurs to set up new industrial
units and that about 2300 consents have been issued since June last year.
Meeting was further
informed that to keep track of harmful emissions emitted by various industrial
units, the SPCB has installed Online Continuous Emission Monitoring System
(OCEMS) in 53 highly polluting industries under 17 different categories all
over the state.
Regarding
monitoring of Water Pollution, meeting was informed that SPCB monitors water
quality under National Water Quality Monitoring Programme (NWMP) at 74
monitoring stations by the CPCB covering stations on rivers. lakes, ponds and
Ground Water Wells while the Board also monitors 21 STPs across the state
including 13 in Kashmir and 8 in Jammu.
Officials further
informed the advisor that on the directions of High Court, the Board monitors
the vehicular pollution with the assistance of Traffic Police and has mobile
labs are in service for the purpose. They said the Board
randomly cross checks 2023 vehicles upto March 2018 while the Board also
monitors the Pollution Checking Centres and reports are conveyed to the
Transport Commissioner for further action.
With regard to the implementation of ban on plastic, officials informed
that SPCB seizes 314.74 quintals of polythene during the current fiscal and
fetched Rs 36.78 lakhs as revenue from auction of the seized material. They
said in an innovative disposal the Board, last year, handed over 396.9 quintals
of seized polythene to SFRI for raising seedlings.