Technology to combat pollution in national meet

NEW DELHI: Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday announced a national meet of environment and forest ministers representing all states to be held on April 6 and 7 in Delhi. The meet will be inaugurated by PM Modi and is supposed to review various aspects of environmental regulations. PM will also launch an air quality index (AQI) for 10 cities on the same day. AQI is a tool to communicate air quality in a simple way through numbers and colours that can be seen on the MoEFCC website April 6 onwards.

PM Modi will chair a combined session with environment ministers at the meeting on use of technology in air pollution, wildlife and forest monitoring which will include use of drones, electronic surveillance and satellite mapping of forests. Issues under four heads will be discussed—waste to wealth (solid waste management and sewage water treatment) which will include the release of new rules on solid, hazardous, biomedical and e-waste. "It will be a new regime in the management of these issues," Javadekar said.

The other issue to be discussed is "Ease of doing business and TSR Subramaniam report"—the TSR Subramaniam committee has recently reviewed six environmental laws including the Environment Protection Act (EPA) of 1986, Forest Conservation Act (FCA) of 1980, Indian Forest Act 1927, Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) of 1972, the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974 and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1981 with the objective of "bringing them in line with current requirements."

Javadekar said the states will respond for a final time on the amendments to these laws as suggested in the report at the meeting. "The idea is to simplify the process of environment impact assessment. For instance terms of reference (TOR) for EIA takes 1 to 1.5 years but at the meeting we will standardize to 30 days so that no time is lost," Javadekar explained. MoEFCC is appointing consultants and taking help from the law ministry to implement the recommendations of Subramaniam committee.

The TSR Subramaniam report has been criticized by a number of civil society organizations because it "short circuits" the important EIA process they say. Recently Ritwick Dutta, environmental lawyer critiqued the report pointing that the focus of the report seems to be only speedy clearances and not enhancing forest cover or improving air and water quality.

On day 2 the meet will have three break-out sessions—on afforestation and Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) funds, on air pollution in cities and industrial areas and on biodiversity and climate change.

At the same conference, Javadekar took a dig at Rahul Gandhi's sabbatical. "In the prediction of a solar or lunar eclipse, certain calculations are involved. But there can be no calculations to determine as to when Rahul Gandhi will appear. So what can I say," he said.