GANDHINAGAR, Sep 8: Arunachal Pradesh is exploring Gujarat’s experience in environmental regulation and digital governance to strengthen its environmental clearance, monitoring and regulatory systems.
Member Secretary of the Arunachal Pradesh State Pollution Control Board (APSPCB) and State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC), D Dohu Robin, held detailed discussions with senior officials of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), SEAC and State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) during his visit to Gandhinagar on Tuesday.
The discussions focused on Environmental Clearance (EC) for Category-B projects, sand mining, preparation of District Survey Reports (DSRs), environmental safeguards and other regulatory issues.
Chairman of SEAC Gujarat and former Member Secretary of GPCB, D M Thaker, shared Gujarat’s experience in handling environmental applications and apprised the Arunachal representative of the functioning of the State Expert Appraisal Committee. The meeting was informed that GPCB receives an average of around 20,000 consent applications annually, while SEAC handles approximately 2,200 applications for Environmental Clearance.
A major takeaway from the interaction was the proposal to develop a dedicated dashboard portal for Arunachal Pradesh for online monitoring and tracking of environmental applications. The proposed portal may be hosted on the State Government website with technical support from the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The portal is envisaged to provide a centralised mechanism for monitoring applications other than Consent applications, which are presently processed through the Unified Consent and Authorization Management System (UCAMS) of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).
The discussions also covered regulatory mechanisms and authorisations related to hazardous substances, Bio-Medical Waste, Municipal Solid Waste, and Construction and Demolition waste.
Officials from GPCB, SEAC, SEIAA and NIC participated in the interaction, which provided an opportunity to exchange experiences on digital regulatory systems, environmental management and institutional practices.
The visit assumes significance as Arunachal Pradesh seeks to strengthen transparency, efficiency and technology-based monitoring in its environmental regulatory framework by drawing on best practices from other states.