'Percentage of highly polluting industries non compliant with green standards has gone up'

The percentage of highly polluting industries non compliant with environmental standards increased from 10 to 17 between 2010 and 2014, a government report released today said.

In 2014, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) identified 3,266 highly polluting industrial units under 17 categories out of which 2,328 are compliant to environmental standards, 571 industries are non compliant, and 367 industries have been closed down, the 'State of Environment Report India 2015' released here said.

The increasing number of industries and the continuing non-compliance with the environmental standards were major causes for concern, the report said.

A comparative analysis of compliance status of 17 categories of highly polluting industries for the period between 2010-14, indicate that 71 percent of the total industries have adequate pollution control facilities to ensure compliance with regulations, and this trend remains unchanged in the same period, it said.

"However, the percentage of non compliance has increased from 10 in 2010 to 17 in 2014," the report said.

Non compliance with regulations mandating pollution technology has been increasing in cement, distilleries, iron and steel, power plants and sugar industries, it said.

Among the highly polluting industries, only 929 industrial units have installed pollution controlled devices and 920 industrial units have installed 24X7 realtime monitoring systems, it added.