e-Governance for waste management in India
The ever-expanding human population and increase in industrialization have contributed to the production of huge quantities of waste. With this, it is the responsibility of the government to develop adequate facilities for proper waste treatment and its management. The Indian government has set up many sewage treatment plants and even mandated private organizations to have their own treatment systems. This has caused a spurt in the number of treatment facilities but maintenance of these systems and proper monitoring are also of utmost importance. With the trend of digitalization in India, it is possible to bring these components in an aligned manner. The Digital India Mission, Swatch Bharat toilets with GIS tracking, consent management platform in the state of Tamil Nadu, National rural drinking water monitoring are some of the initiatives for sewage management under the digitalization trend (Wescoat, 2016; Reymond, 2020). Apart from these, there are other monitoring systems too (https://cpcb.nic.in/e-governance-portals/).
The Centralized Extended Producers Responsibility Portal for Plastic Packaging (EPR) has been set up to ensure the processing of plastic packaging waste through recycling, re-use, or proper disposal under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change, Government of India. There are a set of guidelines of the EPR. Producers, importers and brand owners (PIBOs) need to register themselves through the portal developed by Central Pollution Control Board. the PIBOs working in more than two states or union territories also have to register at the respective state pollution control board. The platform will aid in strengthening the accountability, traceability, and transparency of EPR Obligation fulfillment. The portal is expected to have seven modules that allow Plastic waste processors (PWPs) and PIBOs to register, issue certificates and exchange credits, monitor transactions between PIBOs and PWPs in real-time, levy environmental compensation, and provide system-generated reports, and make filing annual returns easier for stakeholders. The portal has two modules for the registration of PWPs and PIBOs. The registration od PIBOs and PWPs has started on 20th October 2021(Centralized EPR Portal for Plastic Packaging, 2022). There is also a dedicated portal for the registration of compostable plastics with detailed SOP and FAQs for the information of the applicant. This particular portal is majorly a part of the G2B model as it deals with the exchange of information between the government and businesses so as to ensure proper usage and disposal of plastics.
CPCB grants recognition to environmental laboratories as under section 12 and 13 of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA), 1986 to those who fulfill the requirements of “Guidelines for recognition of environmental laboratories under the environmental protection act, 1986”. It is a completely dedicated and separate portal for online applications following the guidelines, requirements and protocols given on the portal. After registration and application, the applicants can view the progress status online (e-Application for Lab Recognition under EPA, 2022). India e-Track is a web portal launched by CPCB for obtaining environmental statistics. It is not in the public domain and requires sign in option by authorized users to obtain river basin-wise status of ETPs, STPs and CETPs (India E-track, 2022; Compliance Status of Grossly Polluting Industries, 2022)
The Library & Information Resource Centre of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) named ‘e-Granthalaya’ is well equipped to provide lending and reference services to its officials. The Library offers a specialized collection of 10,000 information resources, which includes books, reference materials, publications, and internal technical studies. CPCB Library’s major goal is to provide reference and referral services as well as information support to its users. Aside from the books and periodicals that are available for a set period of time, the CPCB library also receives newsletters, annual reports from state pollution control boards, and other institutions/academic institutions that work in the field of environment. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) Library works to construct a collection by identifying, analyzing, selecting, processing, retrieving, and disseminating information to the Scientific Community and CPCB employees (e-Granthalaya OPAC: A Digital Agenda for Library Automation and Networking, 2022). There is also a separate portal for reviewing e-waste management by CPCB (E-waste, 2022). There are separate portals for the quarterly reporting of treatment, storage and disposal facilities and environmental air quality data entry system only for use by CPCB officials (TSDFs, 2022; CPCB | Central Pollution Control Board, 2022). Owing to its restricted nature of information sharing between different government departments and from government to employees the portal falls under G2E and G2G models of e-governance.
There is a separate dashboard showing the suitability of river ganga water for various purposes. It collects data from various points along the river and based on the specifications shows the real-time status (SUITABILITY OF RIVER GANGA WATER, 2022). This is government data which is in the public domain for the information of the citizens and hence can be fitted under the G2C model. A snapshot of the dashboard is shown below in figure 1.