A chimney belches smoke in Adityapur. Telegraph picture

Jamshedpur, March 3: Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB) has decided to make online stack monitoring system compulsory in medium and large scale industrial units.

The JSPCB authorities will issue a circular to this effect to all such units and especially to those which have smokestacks.

JSPCB member secretary R.K. Sinha said the department had taken a decision and was preparing a list of units, which would come under the purview of pollution control norms.

According to Sinha, the online stack monitoring system would be installed to ensure that the industries such as thermal power and sponge iron units are making use of electrostatic precipitators (ESP) machines. Sinha said almost all industrial units that have smokestack and adds to air pollution have installed ESP machines at their plant following the directives of the JSPCB, but very few of them operate the machine as it consumes a huge amount of electricity.

“After installing the online stack monitoring system the units would not be able to hoodwink the JSPCB. Once installed, the system will be linked to JSPCB and we can monitor and keep a tab on the production activities through the online system. This will compel the units authorities to run the ESP machines,” said the senior official.

He said the management of the industrial units concerned would have to buy machine from JSPCB that cost about Rs 5 lakh.

“In the beginning, we have kept small industry like foundry and brick kiln out of the decision. The owners of such units will not be able to bear the expenditure at present but later, we would bring the small-scale units within the ambit of online stack monitoring system,” Sinha said.

Six sponge iron units in Chowka and over eight at Ramgarh have been identified along with Adhunik Power in Adityapur where implementation of the system would be made compulsory.

“Violation of pollution control norms is a corporate crime and the board will take punitive measures against those who fail to abide by the norms,” said Sinha.