Industry Odisha Bureau, Oct 08: Odisha Chief Secretary Anu Garg asked concerned officers for strengthening Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) through modern technology and research for protection of the environment.
The Chief Secretart gave the instruction at the 135th Board Meeting of the Board held here on Thursday. Member Secretary Dr Manoj V. Nair, IFS, along with Board members and senior officials, attended the meeting.
The meeting discussed strengthening the institutional and technical capacity of OSPCB, modernisation of laboratory facilities, research projects and strengthening coastal environmental monitoring.
Special emphasis was given to the proposal to develop CMCE at Paradeep as a Nodal Centre of Excellence for coastal environmental monitoring and analysis.
“The Paradeep centre should not remain merely a laboratory; it should be developed as an integrated centre of science, data and technology for protection of the coastal environment,” Garg said.
To strengthen the State’s environmental monitoring infrastructure, proposals were discussed for construction of regional office own buildings at Cuttack, Jharsuguda, Koraput, Kalinganagar, Bhubaneswar, Keonjhar and Sambalpur, modernisation of the Patia laboratory.
Garg also emphasised giving priority to green buildings, rainwater harvesting, use of solar energy and vermicomposting in the new infrastructure.
To make environmental monitoring faster and data-driven, the meeting discussed establishment of a Command-and-Control Centre at the OSPCB Headquarters at Nayapalli.
It will help integrate laboratory data, water sample analysis and field monitoring data for faster analysis and decision-making. Emphasis was also given to wider use of robotic technology for evaluating water quality of river, ponds, estuaries and sea and drones for field-level surveillance.
In this context, she said, “OSPCB should stand as a symbol of our care and responsibility towards the environment.”
To make fly ash management more scientific and effective, emphasis was laid on preparation of the Odisha Fly Ash Atlas. It will identify fly ash generation, availability, demand and its movement from generators to users.
Alongside this, research on Fly Ash Bio-Stabilisation and Bio-Transformation will be taken forward in collaboration with reputed research and academic institutions.
The meeting also emphasised making the OSPCB Annual Report more citizen-centric, simple and easy to understand. Considering the large volume of data contained in the Annual Report, the Chief Secretary stressed presenting it through charts, visuals, simple information and digital formats to make it more accessible and effective for the general public.
To take the message of environmental protection to the younger generation, distribution of comic and e-comic books among school and college students as part of environmental awareness activities was also discussed. CS also added that OSPCB should stand as a symbol of our care and responsibility towards environment.
At the meeting, the Chief Secretary called for coordinated efforts to build a scientific, technology-enabled, transparent and citizen-centric environmental governance system.
