Question : Flow of Polluted Water into Rivers

(a) whether the Government is aware that contaminated and polluted water is being fed into the main rivers;
(b) if so, the details thereof and the effort being made by the Government to deal with the situation;
(c) whether the pollution is effectively controlled by the industrial units across the country;
(d) if so, the details thereof; and
(e) the number of industrial units identified for non-compliance of pollution norms during last three years along with the action taken against these units?

MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, FOREST AND CLIMATE CHANGE
(SHRI BABUL SUPRIYO)

(a) & (b) Rivers and water bodies in the country are polluted due to discharge of untreated sewage, industrial effluent, agricultural runoff etc. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) along with State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) is monitoring the water quality of both surface and ground water under the National Water Monitoring Programme (NWMP) through a network of monitoring stations across the country. The water quality is assessed for various parameters, including physico-chemical, bacteriological, heavy metals, pesticides, etc.CPCB has identified 351 polluted river stretches in the Country based on the water quality monitoring in the years 2016 and 2017. Also, during year 2015, CPCB had carried out a survey on the sewage generation and treatment capacity available in Class – I and Class – II towns of the country. It was estimated that around 61,948 Million Litres per day (MLD) sewage is being generated from these towns against which total sewage treatment capacity available was 23,277 MLD (37%).





The Government has taken various initiatives to check water pollution which inter alia, include formulation and notification of standards for effluents from industries, operations or
processes; enforcing of these standards by State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs)/Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) through consent mechanism and regular monitoring; installation of Online Continuous Effluent Monitoring systems (OCEMS) to check the discharge of effluent directly into water bodies; creation of sewage treatment capacity of 2522.03 mld (million litres per day) under the National River Conservation Plan; promotion of cleaner production processes; installation of Common Effluent Treatment Plants for cluster of Small Scale Industrial units; issuance of directions under Section 5 of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 and under Section 18(1)(b) of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, etc. Sewage treatment capacity of 2522.03 mld (million litres per day) has been created so far under the NRCP.
(c ) to (e ) CPCB is monitoring and inspecting industrial units based on alerts generated from Online Continuous Effluent/ Emission Monitoring System (OCEMS) and taking appropriate action against non-complying industries as per the provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

During 2016-17, CPCB has started a scheme of inspection of 17 categories of highly polluting industries based on the computer generated alerts. Industries for inspection are selected on the basis of Short Message Service (SMS) alerts generated from the online monitoring systems. A total of 592 industries have been inspected till 14.06.2019 and 347 directions issued under Section 5 of Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to non-complying industries and 1 direction issued under Section 18(1)(b) of the Air and Water Acts to State Pollution Control Board.

Further, CPCB has identified a total of 2743Grossly Polluting Industriesdischarging effluent into water bodies. Out of these, 2497 industries are operational and 246 industries are self-closed. Number of complying and non-complying units are 2222 and 275, respectively.

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