51% posts in pollution control boards vacant

Aksheev Thakur

New Delhi, December 22

The state pollution control boards (SPCB) and pollution control committees (PCC) are understaffed, thereby raising concern about the efficiency of the department tasked with protecting the environment.

Out of 11,969 sanctioned posts in the SPCBs and PCCs, 6,092 posts are vacant.

While 68 per cent posts are vacant in Delhi, 63 per cent posts are vacant in Haryana. In Himachal Pradesh, 40 per cent posts are vacant and in Punjab 50 per cent.

Data by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) stated that over 51 per cent posts are vacant in the state pollution control boards and pollution control committees.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on November 23 ordered Chief Secretaries and Chairpersons of all SPCBs and PCCs to fill the vacant posts and upgrade the laboratories with the latest equipment. The NGT has also asked the state governments to identify and monitor critically polluted areas.

The NGT in its report said, “Out of 11,969 sanctioned posts, only 5,877 are filled and in many states such as Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal etc, the working strength in the SPCBs/PCCs is even less than half of the sanctioned strength.”

The NGT also stated that in some states, labs accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) do not exist. These include states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Lakshadweep, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.