Bhubaneswar: Indicating a lax attitude towards pollution control, the latest ratings released by the Odisha Star Rating program has found 73 industries performing way below the standards set by the regulatory authorities in the state.
The state government had in 2018 introduced ‘Star Rating’ to rate industries based on the amount of pollutants generated by them. The Star Rating program utilises continuously monitored emissions data from major industrial plants and industries are categorised from 1-star to 5-star – from least environment compliant to most.
In the recently released ratings for December 2019 for a total of 130 industries in the state 73 industries were rated a poor 1-star. “Out of 107 industries belonging to 17 categories of high-polluting sectors, only 25 are rated 5-star. Meanwhile, six others have received 4-star and one industry has been rated as 2-star,” the ratings suggested.
Initiated by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB), the Star Rating program is based on emission of particulate matter (PM 10) where ratings are calculated taking two factors into account. They are: Emission averaged over a period of time with respect to permissible limits and data availability as prescribed by SPCB guidelines.
The program also found that 70 per cent of the integrated steel plants have received 1-star rating in December.
In Rourkela industrial belt, 30 industries have been given ratings and shockingly 23 of them scored 1-star.
Commenting on this, SPCB member secretary Debidutta Biswal said, “We are aiming at covering all the industries belonging to 17 categories of high polluting sectors under Odisha Star Rating program. Making the pollution data public keeps the industries on toes to abide by environment compliance norms and also promotes a healthy competition among them. I hope, it will have positive and far reaching impact on keeping the industrial emissions under control.’’
Odisha’s Star Rating program which is one of the first transparency initiatives in India is being carried out jointly by the SPCB, Tata Centre for Development (TCD) at UChicago and EPIC India.
The program rates industries on a monthly basis, but it was not conducted from May to September due to Cyclone Fani which affected the data availability.
The program started with rating 43 industries in October 2018 has seen the number increased to 81 in November and 107 in December, 2019.