{"id":212768,"date":"2022-11-02T19:50:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T14:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=212768"},"modified":"2022-11-02T19:50:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T14:20:59","slug":"the-weakest-link-in-air-pollution-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-weakest-link-in-air-pollution-fight\/","title":{"rendered":"The weakest link in air pollution fight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cThe weakest link in air pollution fight\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Hindu <\/strong>on <strong>2nd November 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Environmental pollution and degradation<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>&#8211; Regulatory structure to fight pollution<\/p>\n<p><strong>News- <\/strong>The article explains the institutional constraints faced by the State Pollution Control Board and Pollution Control Committees of UTs. It also explains the mandate of these institutions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the mandate of SPCBs? <\/strong>The SPCBs were initially constituted under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.<\/p>\n<p>Under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, the SPCB mandate was<\/p>\n<p>expanded to include <strong>air quality management<\/strong>. Subsequently, several new environmental<\/p>\n<p>regulations added to their roles and functions.<\/p>\n<p>Their primary role is to<strong> regulate emissions<\/strong> from point sources such as industries and power plants. More recently, they have also been tasked with guiding cities in meeting targets<\/p>\n<p>under the National Clean Air Programme and spending Finance Commission grants for air<\/p>\n<p>quality improvements.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What are the institutional constraints faced by SPCBs?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><strong>Composition of board<\/strong>&#8211; The composition of SPCBs is a matter of serious concern. Over 50% of the Board members across the 10 SPCBs and PCC represent potential polluters: local authorities, industries, and public sector corporations. Their presence raises fundamental questions around <strong>conflicts of interest.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There is a lack of <strong>multidimensional expertise<\/strong> in the composition of boards. Scientists, medical practitioners, and academics constitute only 7% of the Board members.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leadership issues<\/strong>&#8211; The chairperson and the member secretary do not enjoy a long, stable, and full-time tenure. In many States, persons in these two posts hold an additional charge in other government departments. For example, the shortest tenure for a chairperson has been 18 days in\u00a0 Chhattisgarh and 15 days for a member secretary in Haryana.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Human resources<\/strong>&#8211; SPCBs are<strong> critically under-staffed<\/strong>. At least 40% of all sanctioned posts are vacant across nine SPCBs and PCCs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cThe weakest link in air pollution fight\u201d published in The Hindu on 2nd November 2022. Syllabus: GS3- Environmental pollution and degradation Relevance&#8211; Regulatory structure to fight pollution News- The article explains the institutional constraints faced by the State Pollution Control Board and Pollution Control Committees of UTs.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-weakest-link-in-air-pollution-fight\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The weakest link in air pollution fight<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-212768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}