Greet Tribunal acts: Colour-coding for industries soon, will help map new ones

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At a two-day meeting of the state environment ministers, it was agreed that henceforth, a red category industry will have to renew its licence every five years and an orange category industry every 10 years. The renewal will be based on the actions the individual unit has been taking to curb its pollution levels. The green category industries will only need a one-time licence to operate.

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The state government can, however, decide on different time frames for renewal of licences of industries within their control.

Significantly, the categorisation will be used to decide on the location of new industries. “Red category industries will need to be located away from population hubs and eco-sensitive areas, in places which have better capability to absorb additional pollution load.

Differentiation in locating the industries will be an important implication of this categorisation,” Central Pollution Control Board chairman Shashi Shekhar said.

This is not the first time that the Environment Ministry has come up with a categorisation of industries based on their pollution potential. Currently, 17 industrial sectors are classified as grossly polluting industries, based mainly on the quality of effluent discharge in water. The new categorisation will include pollution on land and air as well.

The environment ministers’ conference decided to constitute a committee to finalise the categorisation within a month. “There would be about 100 industrial sectors. Each of these would have to be assessed on their pollution potential and classified as red, orange or green. Most of the work has already been done. The remaining things will be finalised in a month,” Shekhar said.

The CPCB has called a meeting of all state pollution control boards in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the new categorisation.