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Critiquing ‘Component C’
The comprehensive environmental pollution index has been applied to identify and monitor industrially polluted clusters in India. In the calculation of the CEPI, there is a health parameter (Component C), which uses local health-related data. The article draws attention to the gaps in the design and guidelines to calculate Component C.
The author thanks Awanish Kumar, Shweta Narayan, and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable inputs on this article.
The Bhopal gas tragedy occurred over 35 years ago which was an industrial “accident” and the consequence was the loss of life and health for thousands of people. On paper, lessons were learnt due to this tragedy, with policy attention to industrial pollution in the form of the environment act and various provisions under it. One such provision was the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification in 1994 (revised in 2006) that established the need for prior environmental clearance for industrial and large infrastructural projects.
This approach also incorporated consideration for health and social risks at the stage of project planning (EIA 2006). Besides this, there are also air and water quality standards, which provide cut-offs for levels of air pollution and water pollution in residential, industrial, and ecologically sensitive areas (CPCB 2009b).
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