Innovation is the need of the day to tackle the problem of emissions in the country, emphasised member Secretary, Central Pollution Control Board Mr J S Kamyotra here on Wednesday.
Delivering the keynote address at the CII Conference on Innovative Monitoring & Abatement Technologies for Emission – “leveraging Automation for Particulate Emission Trading”, Mr Kamyotra said India is trying out with an innovative market mechanism to deal with this – Particulate Emission Trading. “It is being tried out as a pilot project in three states – Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra – where the 15 critically polluted areas in the country are located. About 1000 industries have been identified in these states for monitoring which attracts huge business opportunity for technology and equipment for particulate emission abatement,” said Mr Kamyotra.
Mr Kamyotra said this involves two aspects – first, measuring of emissions and the formulation of standards for emission for every industry and, second, ensuring that the industry complies with the standards.
For measuring and monitoring emission, especially particulate emission, Mr Kamyotra laid particular emphasis on the need for innovation in developing technology and instruments in India suitable for Indian conditions. “The instruments manufactured by developed countries were not ideally suited for Indian ambient conditions and are costly,” he said.
Mr K Nandakumar, Chairman, CII Instrumentation and Automation Division in his welcome address, referring to investment in emission technology and equipment, outlined the issue of finance for investment. The challenge is to create awareness and put this awareness into practice, he said. He noted that the Ministry of Environment and Forests, the Central Pollution Control Board and the State Pollution Control Boards have put out a number of regulations and these need to be taken into account in setting up and operating industry.
The Head of Corporate Support Centre, SICK, Germany, Mr Frank Hehl said that there are pollutants which is a worldwide concern, especially in industrialised countries. “Industries provide livelihood and development but they also harm the environment,” he said.
He said there are “pollutants such as mercury, dioxins that create health problems over a period and have long term effects, but it is difficult in each case to find a direct link between these pollutants and their effect”.
Laying stress on the need for controlling emissions, he said emission trading is one such mechanism which is market based. At present, it is only for carbon emissions and covers Green House Gases. “The particulate emission trading,” he said, “holds a new business opportunity for your country.”
Earlier, General Manager of National Thermal Power Corporation Mr RK Bagchi said his company’s name brought to mind ‘three Ps’ – power plant, power and pollution. Conceding that thermal plants were polluting, Mr Bagchi said the key to whole issue is measurement of pollutants. In industrial sector, he said a major source of pollution was dependence of small and medium scale industries on diesel generating sets which not only produced sulphuric and nitrous oxides but also particulate matter.
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