Pollution data of 271 industries covering pesticides, pharma produces, pulp and paper, zinc, copper, aluminium, tie-dye, chloride, sugar, distillery, tannery, power, cement, fertilizer, iron and steel, oil processing, and petrochemical products in the State will be monitored online. A system to update and monitor pollution data from various industries across the State has now been put in place by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board and special software has been developed with the assistance of Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd. (Keonics). The data will be continuously monitored now by the KSPCB, according to a communiqué here on Thursday. These industries are mandated to feed the data into the system and the KSPCB will provide them the technology.
Under the new system, basic information on flow, PH value, TSS, COD, BOD and ammonia will be collected in the first stage. Based on this, if required, the KSPCB would seek additional data. If the pollution level is even 10 per cent more than the prescribed norms, an alert will be generated. The KSPCB has already established an Air Care Centre to initiate measures based on the data that is fed into the system.
The KSPCB has identified Baikampady industrial area, Mangaluru, and Bhadravati as the most polluted areas and they will be covered in this real-time system. The other polluted areas that will be covered include the Tungabhadra (Harihar area), the Bhadra, Halasur lake, and Hebballa valley (Mandya), the communiqué said.
“Until now, the data was procured manually from industries, which was time consuming. By establishing an online real-time data updating mechanism, the KSPCB has now been empowered with real-time monitoring of data,” said Vaman Acharya, KSPCB chairman.
With the new system, Mr. Acharya claimed Karnataka was one of the few States in the country with such a state-of-the-art mechanism and had successfully implemented the guidelines of the Central Pollution Control Board.
Baikampady industrial area and Bhadravati will be covered in the
real-time system initially
