States, Centre agree on tighter green regime; proposal to classify industries based on pollution levels

NEW DELHI: Seeking to introduce a new green regime which may serve its twin objectives of environment protection and economic growth, the government on Tuesday took states on board for initiating a number of measures including re-categorization of polluting industries, tightening norms for recycle of waste water by industries and management of wastes like plastic, medical and ewaste in a strictly regulated manner.

States' consent came during the concluding day of the two-day meeting of environment ministers where they discussed measures to amend regulations to improve ease-of-doing business while protecting the environment.

Though environment ministers of non-NDA ruled states expressed reservations on Centre's move to bring amendments in existing green laws as recommended by the T S R Subramanian panel, the government found them on the same page on measures to tighten various norms. For re-categorization of industries, the environment ministry proposed to classify various industries under a three-coloured scheme depending on their air and water pollution potential and nature of waste generation.

A proposal to classify industries under red, orange and green is among a set of resolutions adopted in the conference. The ministry is also likely to propose initiatives which will allow individual units falling under various sectors to earn `stars' for compliance with environmental norms.

The industrial sectors which will score more than 60 will be categorized as red, those scoring between 3059 will be orange, 15-29 green and below 15 will be considered as white as they are environment friendly .

“We have decided to re-categorize industrial sector depending on their pollution potential. Earlier, the categorization was not reflecting the pollution potential. This is an important step,“ environment minister Prakash Javadekar said.

Javadekar said, “We want to do away with every year renewal of the industries. We have suggested five year renewal for red category , ten years for orange and one time certification for green“.