Guwahati: The Assam Pollution Control Board has had poorly in terms of transparency while sharing information related to the environment and pollution related to the public.
It is ranked seventh after research, “Transparency index: ranking pollution controller board in public disclosure” by the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) assessing data disclosure performance from 29 state pollution controllers and six pollution control committees from all countries.
Of these, only 14 boards and committees scored 50 percent or higher and Assam has scored 44 percent, which shows a lack of transparency.
Placing information related to crucial pollution in the public domain is very important, which can help policy makers take pollution management discussions to the next level.
But when it comes to sharing such information with the public, the majority of state pollution control institutions remain closed entities.
It was found that information about functions, actions taken by the council against the pollution industry, public hearing data on new projects was rarely disclosed or remained difficult to access on the website.
For example, only 12 countries shared their latest annual reports on their website.
Assam is not one of them.
Assam has not provided detailed information about public hearings, which includes an executive summary, a draft project report, and minutes of the meeting.
There is no initiative taken by the Assam pollution control body in sharing the annual report, informing the CSE report.
NIVIT KUMAR YADAV, the Program Director (Industrial Polution Unit) CSE, said, “The state PCB was entrusted with several functions under the provisions of the Air Law, 1974; AC AC, 1981; Act Cess Air, 1977; and various rules and notifications incurred Based on environmental laws (protection), 1986.
One of these functions under section 17 (c) of air and water actions is to collect and disseminate information related to air and water pollution and also about prevention, control or reduction.
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