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India Pollution
In a significant verdict, the Supreme Court has upheld the powers of the pollution control boards to impose restitutionary and compensatory damages for environmental harm, saying that prevention and remediation must be at the heart of environmental governance. A bench comprising justices PS Narasimha and Manoj Misra held that under provisions of the Water Act and the Air Act, pollution control boards are constitutionally and statutorily empowered to levy damages for actual or potential environmental harm. Having considered the principles that govern Indian environmental laws, we have held that the environmental regulators, the Pollution Control Boards exercising powers under the Water and Air Acts, can impose and collect restitutionary or compensatory damages in the form of fixed sum of monies or require furnishing of bank guarantees as an ex-ante measure to prevent potential environmental damage, Justice Narasimha wrote in the judgement delivered on Monday. The verdict said these .
The government on Thursday questioned the credibility of a global report that ranked India among the world's most polluted countries, saying the rankings could be "misleading" due to limitations in data sources and methodology. Replying to an unstarred question by Congress MP Pramod Tiwari in the Rajya Sabha, Union Minister of State for Environment Kirti Vardhan Singh said the IQAir report published in March 2024 ranks countries based on average PM2.5 concentrations. "However, it must be noted that only 38 per cent of the data sources used in the report are from government agencies. The remaining 62 per cent are from other agencies and include data generated using low-cost sensors," Singh said in his written reply. He said that such sensors are not approved for regulatory use and can produce data with a significant degree of error or uncertainty. "The data from a variety of monitors and sources, especially low-cost sensors, may have inaccuracies. Moreover, the report uses ...
Prices of electric vehicles (EVs) will be equal to those of petrol vehicles in the country within six months, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Wednesday. Addressing the 32nd Convergence India and 10th Smart Cities India Expo, Gadkari further said the construction work of the 212-km Delhi-Dehradun access-controlled expressway will be complete in the next three months. "Within six months, the cost of electric vehicles will be equivalent to the cost of petrol vehicles," he said. The minister said the government's policy is import substitute, cost-effectiveness, pollution-free and indigenous production. To make India the third-largest economy, the country needs to improve its infrastructure sector, the Union minister said. "By making good roads, we can reduce our logistics cost," he added. Gadkari asserted that the future of the country's economy is very good and the government is committed towards smart cities and smart transport. "We are working on
Pollution in east, north and central Indian cities primarily comes from residential and transportation sectors, while in western India, industry and energy are the main contributors to local PM2.5 pollution, a study has found. Published in the journal Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, the study also found that PM2.5 pollution in cities in south India majorly comes from the industry and residential sectors. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Maharashtra, and the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, analysed pollution levels in 53 cities, having more than a million population during the winter of 2015-2016. Residential emissions -- from burning biomass for cooking and heating -- were found to be the leading contributor to local PM2.5 pollution in Srinagar (68 per cent), Varanasi (37 per cent), Allahabad (34 per cent) and Kanpur (33 per cent). The transportation sector's contribution to local PM2.5 pollution was found to be higher in north Indian .
Civil defence volunteers who were terminated as bus marshals in October 2023 will be deployed on pollution mitigation related duties for four months following an order by Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena, officials said on Thursday. Their employment period will begin on November 1, they said. The lieutenant governor, who is also chairman of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, has advised the city government and the chief minister to come up with a concrete scheme based on due process for their future engagement after the four-month employment period, a Raj Niwas official said. The scheme -- to be prepared by the Delhi government for regular employment of the civil defence volunteers -- will include details of their deployment, budgetary provision, financial approvals, post creation and reservation norms, he said.
The Centre on Friday ordered a ban on non-essential construction work and plying of BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel four-wheelers in Delhi-NCR amid worsening air quality in the region. Unfavourable meteorological conditions including fog and haze with low wind speed are the major causes for a sudden spike in Delhi's daily average air quality index (AQI), the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM), a statutory body responsible for formulating strategies to combat pollution in the region, said in an order. Delhi's overall AQI is steadily rising since this morning. It stood at 397 at 10 am and 409 at 4 pm. Re-invoking curbs under Stage-III of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the CAQM ordered a ban on non-essential construction work, stone crushing, and mining in Delhi-NCR. Construction work related to national security or defense, projects of national importance, healthcare, railways, metro rail, airports, interstate bus terminals, highways, roads, flyovers, overbridges, .
The National Green Tribunal has directed all states and Union territories to file reports regarding the actual staff strength in state pollution control boards and pollution control committees. The tribunal also sought a report regarding the infrastructure in their environmental laboratories. The NGT was hearing a matter where it had taken suo motu ( on its own) cognisance of a media report claiming that the pollution control boards (PCBs) across the country did not have the resources to perform their functions. The report cited several reasons, including inadequate sanctioned strength of personnel, a high number of vacancies especially in technical positions and the absence of proper training. In a recent order, a bench of NGT Chairperson Justice Prakash Shrivastava and expert member A Senthil Vel said, "The news item raises a substantial issue affecting the compliance of environmental laws." The bench said according to a Central Pollution Control Board report, the news report ab