Short of manpower or under the pressure of meeting a shorter deadline of 45 days under the Right to Service (RTS) Act, the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) has rejected almost 24% of the applications it received under various categories in three years.
The board has shared this data with the media now. Sources who know the situation blame both factors for this high volume of rejections, while the board maintains that it considers all the applications on merits and inspection reports. Since the year 2020-21, the board has received 41,039 applications from the industry under heads such as ‘consent to operate’ (CTO), ‘consent to establish’ (CTE), ‘authorisation for hazardous waste management’ (HWM) and ‘biomedical waste’ (BMW) Out of these applications, the board has rejected 9,823 and approved 31,198, which brings the approval rate to 76.4%. The maximum rejections, 28%, were recorded this year, which is more than one a fourth of the total applications. The board claims to have received 15,775 applications since April and rejected 4,568 of those on various grounds after inspection. Officials claimed that the applications are rejected generally over missing details or violations of the Environment Protect Act and laws designed to protect the earth, water, and air. A board official said: “Normally, the units registered with board operate through agencies. Those doing regular follow-up or comlying with the rules get NOC (no-objection certificate) in the stipulated time, while the reasons for rejection are also shared with the entrepreneurs.” Confronted with the data, HSPCB chairman P Raghuvendra Rao maintained that since the RTS had been enforced, the board had improved its performance as industrial watchdog.