Q.01

Which CPCB guidelines apply to industrial pollution compliance?

CPCB doesn't have one industrial-compliance code. A unit's obligations come from several instruments that work together: CPCB's Red/Orange/Green/White/Blue sector categorisation, the industry-specific discharge and emission standards notified under the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986, CPCB's 2014 online-monitoring directions and guidelines, the Rule 9 procedures for using hazardous waste, and the EPR portals.

1. Sector categorisation (the starting point for consent)

  • CPCB's current list is dated 24 August 2026. It classifies 464 sectors: 393 industrial, 9 waste-management services for industry, 9 domestic/household services, 48 service/infrastructure sectors and 5 special categories (CPCB list, p.1).
  • By category: Red 124 [1], Orange 139 [2], Green 99 [3], White 90 [4] and Blue 12 [5].
  • Each sector gets a Pollution Index built from water, air and hazardous-waste sub-scores. Many entries change category with capacity or fuel. For example, bakeries of 1 TPD or more are Orange (PI 61.3), but Green (54.6) on cleaner or gaseous fuel (CPCB list, p.2).
  • Some categories rest on ecological damage rather than the Pollution Index. Sand mining is the example: Red above 5 ha or in a cluster, Orange up to 5 ha when not part of a cluster [6][7].

2. Industry-specific standards (Gazette notifications under the E(P) Rules, 1986) The parent rules are S.O. 844(E), 19/11/1986 [8]. Examples of sector standards:

  • Thermal power plants, S.O. 3305(E), 07/12/2015 [9]
  • CETPs, S.O. 4(E), 01/01/2016 [10]
  • Cement plants, G.S.R. 612(E), 25/08/2014 [11]; cement plants co-processing waste, G.S.R. 497(E), 10/05/2016 [12]
  • Pharmaceutical effluent, G.S.R. 512(E), 2009 [13]
  • Pesticides, G.S.R. 446(E), 2011 [14]
  • Dyes and dye intermediates, G.S.R. 325(E), 2014 [15]
  • Petrochemicals, G.S.R. 820(E), 2012 [16]
  • Integrated iron and steel, G.S.R. 277(E), 2012 [17]
  • Common hazardous waste incinerators, G.S.R. 481(E), 2008 [18]
  • Revised general standards and CETP oil and grease limits (Schedule VI), G.S.R. 739(E), 2010 [19]
  • National Ambient Air Quality Standards, G.S.R. 826(E), 2009 [20]

The same archive also has standards for sugar, electroplating, rubber, smelters, sponge iron, brick kilns, hotels, pulp and paper, and DG sets. It stops at 2017, so any standard revised since then needs checking against the current Gazette.

3. Online continuous emission and effluent monitoring (OCEMS)

  • The 2014 directions: on 05.02.2014 CPCB issued directions under section 18(1)(b) of the Water and Air Acts. They told SPCBs and PCCs to require online emission and effluent monitoring in:
    • the 17 categories of highly polluting industries
    • CETPs and STPs
    • common bio-medical and hazardous waste incinerators
  • What the directions require:
    • live data sent to both the SPCB/PCC and CPCB
    • IP cameras for units claiming Zero Liquid Discharge
    • tamper-proof systems with online calibration
  • Boilers: G.S.R. 96(E) of 29.01.2018 extends continuous monitoring to boilers in sugar, textile, tannery, distillery and other boiler-using industries.
  • How the data is used: under the 2018 guidelines, monitoring data will count for regulatory purposes only once CEMS-based standards are notified. Until then, enforcement relies on the existing manual sampling methods.

Sources: CPCB 1st Revised CEMS Guidelines, Aug 2018, pp.1-4. CPCB's online-monitoring page links the reporting protocol, remote calibration guidance, an SOP for STP effluent analysers and the RTDMS registration portal.

4. Hazardous waste

  • Rule 9 of the Hazardous and Other Wastes Rules, 2016 says using hazardous waste as a resource "shall be carried out only after obtaining authorization from the State Pollution Control Board… on the basis of standard operating procedures of guidelines provided by the Central Pollution Control Board". Where no such procedure exists, CPCB must approve the use after trial runs. Cement plants co-processing waste need no trial run where CPCB guidelines already exist [21].
  • The current procedure is the July 2019 revision. Earlier versions date from 2015, 2016 and 2017 [22].
  • CPCB publishes a list of 55 common hazardous-waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities [23].

5. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) portals CPCB runs six EPR portals, all listed as updated 13 Feb 2026: plastic [24], e-waste [25], battery [26], waste tyres [27], used oil [28] and end-of-life vehicles (ELV) [29].

6. Other relevant instruments

  • CPCB's guidelines page covers compliance for generator sets: emission and noise type-approval, in-use gensets, and retrofitted emission control devices for diesel gensets up to 800 kW.
  • The Chemical Accidents (Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response) Rules, 1996 [30] and the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemical Rules, 1989 [31] apply to units that handle hazardous chemicals.
  • The Gazette archive also holds older versions of the hazardous waste (2009), plastic waste (2011) and bio-medical waste (1998) rules. I haven't treated these as current law here.

Approach: I searched CPCB's sector categorisation list, its hazardous-waste archive, TSDF list and EPR portal directory, and MoEF/MoEFCC Gazette notifications from 1986 to 2017, then opened CPCB's guidelines, online-monitoring and CEMS guideline pages. I didn't check notifications or CPCB directions issued after 2017 beyond what those CPCB pages state. If you give me a sector or a state, I can pull its category, applicable standards and the State Board's consent or monitoring requirements.

Q.02