INTRODUCTION

Laws for the prevention and control of pollution have been part of centralised environmental law in India since the 1970s. Parliamentary documents state that before the enactment of these laws, pollution control was mostly carried out through the provisions of the Indian Penal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, the Factories Act, 1948, and the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958. The enactment of the first law specifically dealing with pollution is attributed directly to India's commitment to the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment in June 1972. Reports of high-level committees record, ‘it was considered appropriate by Government to have uniform laws all over the country for broad environmental problems endangering the health and safety of the people as well as of the country's flora and fauna’.

The legal framework for pollution control relies on a conditional consent-based system to regulate polluting projects and processes. Through this system, pollution laws regulate emissions, effluents and toxicity of industrial processes and projects within limits set by the law. The permissible pollution standards are either specific to types of industries such as coal power, manufacturing and construction or types of raw materials being used in industrial processes including asbestos, iron ore and mercury. These standards apply across locations and on projects based on their size and production capacity. For instance, pollution norms apply to the construction of mini dam projects as well as large nuclear facilities. Specific norms also apply to the entire life cycle of an industrial process from pre-construction to end of operations.

Pollution control boards (PCBs) at central, state and regional levels implement pollution laws. These boards set parameters for the permissible levels of pollutants in the air, water or land. Individuals and organisations are expected to invest in pollution control equipment and infrastructure to keep discharges and emissions within the permissible levels. The pollution levels of projects or processes are to be regularly monitored by devices installed for collecting data on quality and quantity of emissions and discharges. In recent years, monitoring data is made available to the PCB regulators through continuous online real-time emission monitoring systems.