10 pollution control agencies were discovered to have fixed deposits worth Rs 2,893 crore.
Whether State Pollution Control Boards and Pollution Control Committees (SPCBs/PCCs) in India are successfully carrying out their responsibility to manage pollution has been questioned in a research paper published on April 28, 2023.
The State of India's Pollution Control Boards: Are They in the Green? is the fourth paper in the series The State of India's Pollution Control Boards from the public policy think tank Centre for Policy Research (CPR).
As of March 31, 2021, it was discovered that 10 SPCBs/PCCs, all located in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), had deposited their yearly sizable surplus in short- and medium-term fixed deposits to the tune of Rs 2,893 crore. The money should have ideally gone towards infrastructure, equipment, and labour.
The document was written by several people, including Shibani Ghosh, an environmental lawyer and former fellow at CPR, as well as Bhargav Krishna and Annanya Mahajan from CPR.
Through RTI applications, the authors requested financial data from nine SPCBs and one PCC, all of which were located in the IGP of north India.
The study demonstrated that even though many SPCBs have appropriate funding, this does not guarantee that they carry out their duties successfully.
This is because, despite being consistent, funding from the state governments is insufficient because it only supports programmes that are already sponsored by them.
The authors found that, with the exception of two states, state governments did not provide financial support to their respective SPCBs or PCCs.
“As Boards can no longer charge water cess, licensing and consent fees along with interest income accruing from investments are the sole revenue generation mechanisms of the Boards,” the paper noted.
With notable exceptions, spending on new infrastructure, particularly lab facilities, is low despite the dire state of many states' infrastructure. The amount spent on studies, research, and development is a very small portion of all expenditures.
The authors discovered that the majority of the Boards under investigation obtained almost half of their income from providing no objection certifications to polluting enterprises and approving permission to set up and operate.
The paper noted that the proposed amendments to the Air Act and the Environment Protection Act in the Jan Vishwas Bill currently tabled in Parliament envision significant changes to the regulatory regime.