With the Centre accepting a long-standing demand of the industry to remove dual compliance of Environmental Clearance (EC) and Consent to Establish (CTE) for setting up of new industries non-polluting white category industries are no longer required to take CTE or Consent to Operate (CTO) at all.

The industries that have taken EC will not be required to take CTE. This will not only reduce compliance burden but also prevent duplication of approvals. Notifications to this effect have been issued by the Ministry of Environment and Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) under the Air Act and Water Act.

The notifications effectively integrate these two approvals along with a standard of procedure that has been issued in this regard to take into account the issues considered during the CTE process, in the EC itself. Hence, State Pollution Control Boards will be consulted during the EC process. Further, the CTE fee shall be payable by the industry so that there is no loss of revenue to the states, according to a ministry release.

As per the notifications, the rule applies to all industrial plants having a pollution index score up to 20 as listed in the schedule to this notification subject to:

(a) a condition that such plants shall inform in writing the State Pollution Control Boards or the Pollution Control Committees;
(b) (b) all the industrial plants that have obtained prior environmental clearance as per the notification of the government of India in the erstwhile Ministry of Environment and Forests number S.O. 1533(E), dated the 14th September 2006 issued under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (29 of 1986), in respect of previous consent to establish such plant.

Subject to the provisions of the Act, the MoEFCC may issue necessary standard operating procedures (SOP) for streamlining the implementation of this notification, as deemed appropriate.

A further break-up shows these units pertain to the assembly of air coolers /conditioners, repairing and servicing, assembly of bicycles, baby carriages, other small nonmotorised vehicles, bailing (hydraulic press) of waste papers, bio-fertilizer, and bio-pesticides without using inorganic chemicals, biscuits trays, etc. from rolled PVC sheet (using automatic vacuum forming machines), blending and packing of tea, block making of printing without foundry (excluding wooden block making), chalk making from plaster of Paris (only casting without boilers, (sun drying / electrical oven), compressed oxygen gas from the crude liquid oxygen (without the use of any solvents and by maintaining pressure and temperature only for separation of other gases), cotton and woolen hosiers making (dry process only without any dying/washing operation) and diesel pump repairing and servicing (complete mechanical dry process) among others.