Official papers accessed by @reporters_co, show how the CM intervened to drive changes in law to reduce the time limit given to Pollution Board officials to grant approvals to polluting industries.

Even after a top Pollution Board official red-flagged the changes.

You can read the whole story here.

Let's look at how the Haryana gov’t has over the years diluted green norms to favour industry. And the CM's role in it.

Firstly, under the environmental laws Air/Water Acts, Pollution Board's approval is needed before setting up an industry that pollutes the environment.

These approvals are: CTE- Consent to Establish and CTO- Consent to Operate an industry.

Officials of the Board are required to do their due diligence before giving these permits.

Under the Central Acts a maximum time limit of 120 days is given for this.

But the Haryana Pollution Board has over the years brought down this time-limit from 120 days to 30 days (and 45 if application is incomplete).

In September 2014, the Pollution Board was already mulling a revision of these time-limits. 65 days for CTE and 85 for CTO.

After the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state in October 2014, these time-limits were drastically reduced.

First, the 65- and 85-day time-limits for approval to set up and operate an industry were enforced in October 2015.

Within 4 months, the state again swung into action to reduce time-limits for granting approvals to industry.

The board further reduced the time limit to grant consent to establish by 5 days.

This was done after the Centre came out with its Business Reform Action Plan, 2016.

The plan, meant to boost industry, suggested that the states' Pollution Board's approvals be given as "services" with clear timelines.

In a January 2017 meeting, the CM “directed Departments to make sincere efforts to secure Top spot” in Ease of Doing Business Rankings.

He also instructed departments to complete "industrial/enterprise-related services" within 45 days. This includes 30 days for the initial processing and an extra 15 days if additional information is needed from the industry.

When 9 months passed without the CM's decree enforced, another plan was enforced.

To bring the Board under the Right to Service Act.

To turn the Pollution Board- a regulatory body- into a service provider for industry. As the Centre's Business Reform Plan had envisioned.

On October 24, 2017, the CMO wrote to Haryana's enviro department. The letter said that the CM had desired that the Board be notified under the Service Act and the consents to industries be given in 30 days.

The Member Secretary of the Pollution Board contested the move. He said that the Central enviro laws give a 120-day time-limit and that these laws would supersede others.

But his wisdom was side-stepped.

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Within a day, on October 31, 2017 all the bureaucratic processes were hastily done. Legal opinion was sought over WhatsApp and telephone call, a notification to make the Board a service provider with 30-day time-limit was published in the state gazette.

The result: Officials of the Board had to hastily give approvals to polluting industries.

This when they were already heavily burdened with workload because of the severe understaffing in the Pollution Board.

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According to official data, around 63% posts in the Haryana Pollution Board were lying vacant in October 2022.

The National Green Tribunal reprimanded the state and directed that the vacancies be filled.

The state is yet to do it.

What has it done instead?

The Haryana Pollution Board has been charge-sheeting officials for missing these unrealistic deadlines to grant approvals to polluters.

An official was charge-sheeted for missing the deadline by 2 days. Even though the time he took included over 3 off-days.

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Officials of the Board and experts told us there are others who have been scapegoated for ease of businesses.

They are supposed to carry 50 to 60 mandatory inspections in a month, along with grievance redressal meetings, court hearings, sample collections and much more.

Instead of focusing on environment and officials, the Haryana gov’t diluted norms to favor industries.

In October 2015, it extended the validity for polluting and highly polluting units to operate. From 3 and 2 years to 10 and 5 years respectively.

In March 2016, the Board allowed auto-renewal of Consent to Operate based on disclosure of compliance by industries. This meant that instead of the Board scrutinizing the unit and deciding if its consent should be renewed, it would go by what the industry tells it.

This method of auto-renewal happened for 3 years.

It was only after the Green Tribunal intervened that the Board introduced an amendment of ‘pre-verification of documents’ in its auto-renewal policy for CTO.

The Haryana government has over the years weakened its Pollution Control body and made it a service-provider for the industry.

Even as its own officials and the environment suffers.

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