By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, September 17, 2018: Odisha chief minister, Naveen Patnaik on Monday launched a star-rating program for industries in a bid to cut air pollution.

The first-of-its-kind transparency initiative in the state will categorize industries from 1-star to 5-stars, with 1-star being the least compliant and 5-stars being the most compliant to pollution standards set by the regulator.

The program aims to inform residents and industries and also strengthen the regulatory efforts by the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) to reduce pollution.

“We are committed towards serving our citizens better a I am very optimistic about this program that aims to cut air pollution. The Star Rating program will help the public to find out whether industries in their vicinity are fair in their environmental compliance and empower them to strengthen regulations through public participation,” Patnaik said while launching the program. He also unveiled a new website (www.ospcb.info) where citizens can access the information.

Commenting on the development, Odisha SPCB Chairman R Balakrishnan said the board has been collecting data through a Continuous Emission Monitoring System (CEMS) on industrial air pollution emissions. He also thanked the researchers from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC India) for distilling this data into star-ratings and using it for public disclosure.

“The Odisha Star Rating program is a pioneering initiative that will help citizens identify the sources of pollution in their neighbourhoods and cities and empower them to help ensure that industries comply with existing Indian laws,” said Michael Greenstone, the Milton Friedman Professor in Economics and Director of EPIC and the Tata Centre for Development at UChicago (TCD).

While the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board worked with researchers from EPIC-India and others to launch a similar program last year, the Odisha initiative is the first in India to utilize continuously monitored emissions data captured in real time from major industrial plants.

The Star Rating Program is based on the particulate matter (PM) emissions of large manufacturers of steel, cement, aluminium and major power plants. The program will be implemented with the help of EPIC India researchers and TCD in a phased manner.

The program will cover 20 industrial plants initially and will eventually cover all the 136 plants with continuously monitored data. SPCB Odisha is also conducting inspection and recalibration drives to check the quality of data and would be updating the ratings every month.