The Environmental Compliance and Assistance Centre (ECAC), the first-of-its-kind in the country, will be set up at the premises of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC).
“Since the centre will provide technology solutions to new industrial units, we thought it should be located at WBIDC premises”, said M L Meena, state secretary, department of Environment. The centre will be set up by the Asian Environment Compliance and Enforcement Network and will be funded by the World Bank.
Last year, nearly 50 industrial units had to be closed down because they were not adhering to pollution norms of West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB).
It is, however, claimed that excessive command and control exercised by the board over the units had hampered the implementation of pollution norms.
Responding to the charges, chairman of WBPCB, A N Basu said, “The industry should believe in self-compliance because arm twisting cannot go a long way.”
Environmental concerns should be considered an internal issue of a company and not a law and order problem, he added. An industrial unit must not hold this attitude that it would stop emitting effluents only when an external agency applied strict controls over it, he said.