Sharing of CEMS data by state pollution control boards & committees in the public domain was mandated by Supreme Court in 2017
Photo: iStock After the state pollution control boards of Rajasthan and Tripura, now the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has taken a step towards transparency by sharing continuous emission monitoring system (CEMS) data on their official website. Both real-time data and historical data are now visible on the MPCB website.
On the website’s online CEMS (OCEMS) data page, there is a drop down for selection of categories like:
After selecting the industry, it will show the name of all industries falling under the selected category. For seeing OCEMS data of any industry, one should select monitoring types like ‘emission’ or ‘effluent’.
MPCB website navigation
Then, one needs to choose the monitoring station to observe data from, such as stack 1, stack 2, ETP-outlet, boiler-stack, cooling tower, etc depending on the monitoring station installed in industry.
After that, the report format (data in tabular or graph) and criteria (data availability range like 15 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, daily, monthly, yearly average) should be selected.
There is also the option to fetch historical data from the calendar by selecting the required period.
CEMS data avaialble on the website
Sharing of CEMS data by SPCBs or pollution control committees (PCC) in the public domain was mandated by the Supreme Court of India February 22, 2017. The apex court directed all the state governments to make provision for an ‘online, real-time, continuous monitoring system’ to display emission levels in the public domain or on the portal of the SPCB. States were given six months (by August 2017) to comply.
In 2021, Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment conducted a study Transparency Index Rating of SPCBs on public disclosure. In this study “availability of CEMS data in public domain, availability of historical data and ease of CEMS data accessibility on website” were one of the indicators on which SPCBs were rated.
In the study, it was found that no provision was made by Andaman & Nicobar, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Maharashtra, Manipur, Rajasthan, Nagaland, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura for making CEMS data available in the public domain.
The objective of making CEMS data public is to increase transparency in pollution reporting and consequently improving compliance. The main aim of the system is to derive emission and effluent quality data with minimal human interferences.
Read more: Industry emissions data incomplete, inaccessible on Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh websites: CPCB
Following the study, the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board and the Tripura Pollution Control Board started sharing CEMS data on public domain. Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board has taken an initiative towards displaying CEMS data on its website in a more user-friendly manner. However, in the case of Tripura Pollution Control Board, historical CEMS data is not available.
Maharashtra and Rajasthan pollution control boards are sharing historical CEMS data which is very important for doing baseline studies and understanding the trends of emission in specific sectors.
Earlier (in the CSE’s transparency index report) only five SPCBs were sharing historical CEMS data — Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.
Missing data
It’s been five years since the Supreme Court order, but some SPCBs are yet to take any concrete action to make the CEMS data public, highlighting the reluctance of the regulatory authorities.
Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttara Khand and West Bengal still have not made their CEMS data public.
Most of the time, OCEMS data isn’t visible on websites of complying SPCBs as well due to technical glitches or server issues. This issue needs to be rectified.
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