Industrial Pollution Control and Environmental Compensation
Industrial Pollution Control and Environmental Compensation tests consent architecture, industrial categorisation, cluster assessment and the polluter-pays remedy. Questions often combine a compliance scenario with a calculation.
Consent and categories
Industries need Consent to Establish and Consent to Operate under the Water Act (Sections 25–26) and Air Act (Section 21). CPCB categorises industries by pollution index: Red (score ≥60), Orange (41–59), Green (21–40) and White (≤20). Red and Orange need stricter siting, effluent/emission control and monitoring. The 17 highly polluting categories include distilleries, sugar, pulp and paper, cement, thermal power, refineries, fertilisers and tanneries; many must run online continuous emission monitoring (OCEMS) connected to regulator servers.
CEPI and compensation
The Comprehensive Environmental Pollution Index (CEPI) scores air, water and land stress in an industrial cluster; high scores trigger a moratorium on new industries and a remediation plan. Environmental compensation applies the polluter-pays principle for consent violations, exceedances or damage. CPCB methodology multiplies a pollution index, duration, rate and scale/location factors; NGT and courts can also order restitution.
Worked example
A stack flow is 10,000 Nm³/h with PM 80 mg/Nm³ against a limit of 100 mg/Nm³. Mass emission = 80 mg/Nm³ × 10,000 Nm³/h = 800,000 mg/h = 0.8 kg/h. At 8,000 h/year this is 6.4 t/year. The unit is compliant, but a 20% flow increase at the same concentration gives 0.96 kg/h and 7.68 t/year, which may breach a load-based cap.
Traps
CTE is not CTO; Red is not the same as critically polluted; CEPI is not AQI; environmental compensation is not a tax or a consent fee; unit conversion between mg/Nm³, kg/h and t/year is a common failure.