Context: Recently, a new rating study by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has found that a mere handful of India’s pollution control boards and authorities are adequately putting out environmental and governance information intothe public domain.

• The study titled, Transparency Index: Rating of pollution control boards on public disclosure, has assessed the data disclosure performance of 29 state pollution control boards and six pollution control committees from across the country. 

Issue

• A majority of India’s pollution control agencies remain closed entities when it comes to sharing information with the public.
• The state pollution control boards (SPCB) and pollution control committees (PCC) in India generate large quantities of data every day, online or manually. Most of them, however, take minimal initiative to disclose the information in public domain.
• The assessment is an effort to encourage SPCBs / PCCs to place their information in the public domain.

Key Findings

• Laxity in sharing information on solid waste: 14 SPCBs and PCCs do not share any information on municipal waste generation; 11 on plastic waste generation; 10 on hazardous waste; and nine on e-waste.
• Lack of uniformity in displaying data: For instance, all the SPCBs/PCCssurveyed have different website formats, which makes accessing information quite difficult. Similarly, there is no format for annual reports: hence,the information available varies from board to board
• Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems data not made public in 13 states / UTs: Andaman & Nicobar, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Maharashtra, Manipur, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura have no provision for making continuous emission monitoring systems (CEMS) data available in the public domain. Only 12 states have shared their latest annual report on their websites

?This is despite the Supreme Court order and a notification fromUnion Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 mandating the same. 

• Only five states have shared soft copies of notices online: J&K, Rajasthan, Telangana, Uttarakhand and West Bengal have shared have shared soft copies of directions, show cause and closure notices issued by the pollution bodies on their websites. 
• Only five boards has shared minutes of board meetings: It is mandatory for SPCBs to meet at least once every three months to discuss action plans, compliance and monitoring, functioning of the board and stronger enforcement of laws. 

Details from public hearings provided only by nine SPCBs/PCCs: Karnataka, Telangana, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa and Mizoram are the only places with complete public hearing sections on their pollution body websites. 

• The section should include the executive summary, draft Environment Impact Assessment report of projects and minutes of meetings of public hearings on the project. 
• The format in which data is presented on the websites and annual reports of the SPCBs / PCCs was not uniform. The information was also difficult to find on the portals of certain boards because of poor navigation support.
• Only 17 boards and committees scored 50% or above: These 17 are from Odisha, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Goa, Karnataka, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.
• Inspection & compliance reports: In the annual reports, only Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have shared information on the inspection conducted by the pollution control boards. Haryana and Karnataka are the only places to have shared information on compliance status of industries in their reports.

Suggestion

• There should be a uniform format for presenting annual reports and sharing information on websites. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) should come up with a website format for the SPCBs / PCCs and guidelines for framing annual reports
• Making data public: All SPCBs / PCCs must make CEMS data public.
• Public hearing information must be shared by all SPCBs / PCCs online
• Information related to waste management should be made available on the websites of the pollution control bodies.
• CPCB should come up with a website format all SPCBs / PCCs for uploading information about compliance history of industries, at least for the grossly polluting. Each industry section should have soft copies of notices issued