Why Are India's Pollution Control Boards Still Understaffed? Issue Raised In Parliament Again
According to the Centre, the appointment of employees in the State Boards and Pollution Control Committees are made by their respective boards and committees, and under their rules
As recruitment bottlenecks continue to impair India's key pollution monitoring agencies, the issue of understaffing and huge vacancies in State Pollution Control Boards was once again raised in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
The issue has persisted for several years with legislators from states including Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu highlighting that over 50 per cent posts are vacant in the Pollution Control Boards across all states and union territories.
Responding to questions on Monday, Minister of State for Environment, Forests and Climate Change Kirti Vardhan Singh attributed the vacancies to multiple recruitment bottlenecks, including pending approval of service rules, delays in sanctioning staffing patterns, re-structuring or upgradation of posts, changes in recruitment policies and abolition of certain posts. 'Several Court cases/proceedings also have a bearing on recruitment and promotions," said Singh.
Furthermore, he said that many new recruits are not joining the departments due to different reasons. 'No applications received for deputation posts, and no suitable candidates found in feeder grade. There are also no eligible candidates in the feeder cadre for promotional posts," he added.
In March, the government had told Parliament, that as many as 5,351 posts are vacant across all state pollution control boards with as many as 339 in Uttar Pradesh alone. The issue was also brought to the attention of the Supreme Court earlier this year during a writ petition, when it directed all the State Pollution Control Boards and Committees to ensure that all the vacancies are filled by the end of September.
Tasked with implementation of environmental laws across the country, the state pollution control Boards (SPCBs) have a very important role in enforcement of provisions of Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. However, the manpower shortage has impeded action on the ground, say experts, as the agencies are required to monitor and take steps to abate the rising pollution levels.
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