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.