Pollution Board consent stuck? File an RTI

Short version. Every industry that discharges effluent or emissions needs two permissions from its State Pollution Control Board (SPCB): Consent to Establish (CTE) before you build — Section 25, Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 and Section 21, Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981 — and Consent to Operate (CTO) before you run it. Neither Act sets a deadline by which the board must decide, so files sit for months on end. The RTI Act is the one law that puts a clock on the board: 30 days for a reply, 48 hours if life or liberty is involved, and a first appeal to the board's own First Appellate Authority if the reply is silent or evasive.

Karan runs a small orange-category fabrication unit in Karnataka. His CTO renewal sat on “pending site verification” for seven months — every visit to the regional office produced the same answer: “it is in process”.

He filed a six-point RTI to the PIO of the KSPCB regional office: current status, site-visit date, reason for delay, name of the dealing officer, deficiencies, and expected date of issue. Twenty-three days later the board replied in writing: the site visit had already happened, and the CTO was issued within 14 days of that reply. Nothing about his file had changed — only the fact that someone now had to put a reason on paper.

- Two consents, both statutory. CTE under Water Act 1974 §25 + Air Act 1981 §21 before establishing; CTO before commissioning operations. The Environment (Protection) Act 1986 and the EIA Notification 2006 add a separate Environmental Clearance (EC) for large projects — EC and consent are different permissions from different bodies. - Colour categories. CPCB's March 2016 revised classification (issued as directions to all SPCBs) sorts industries by a Pollution Index into Red (85 sectors in the final list), Orange (73), Green (86) and White (practically non-polluting). The colour decides how deep your scrutiny is. - Validity of consents varies by category and state — a common pattern is Red 5 years, Orange 10, Green 15, with White exempt from consent in several states (intimation only). Check your own board's rules; renewals must be filed before expiry or you run on lapsed papers. - The 2024 amendment changed the map. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act, 2024 (assent 15 February 2024) is in force first in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and the Union Territories; other states adopt it by Assembly resolution. It lets the Centre — with CPCB — exempt categories of industries from consent altogether, inserts Section 27A power to issue guidelines for granting, refusing and cancelling consents, and replaces imprisonment for minor violations with penalties of ₹10,000 to ₹15 lakh plus up to ₹1 lakh a day for continuing failures, imposed by an adjudicating officer. If you are in an adopting state, cite the amended scheme; otherwise the 1974 Act as amended in your state still governs.

To, The Public Information Officer,
[State Pollution Control Board] — Regional Office, [City]

Subject: Application under Section 6(1), RTI Act 2005 — status of CTE/CTO application

  Industry name    : [Name]
  Activity         : [Nature of activity / NIC code]
  Category         : Red / Orange / Green / White
  Application no.  : [Consent portal reference]
  Application date : DD-MM-YYYY

Please provide:
1. The current status and processing stage of the application, as recorded in the file.
2. The date of site inspection, if conducted, and a copy of the inspection report.
3. The reason, as recorded in writing, for the delay beyond the timeline published in the Board's citizen charter.
4. The name and designation of the officer currently holding the file.
5. Any deficiency or document shortfall noted in the file, with the date it was recorded.
6. The date by which the consent will be issued or refused.

Fee of ₹10 paid by [IPO / DD / online]. I ask that the information be supplied
within 30 days as required by Section 7(1) of the RTI Act.

[Name + signature + address + date]

Point 3 does the heavy lifting: ask for the reason as recorded in writing and for the officer's name. Files move when the delay has to be attributed to a person.

- Reply admits delay with no date → first appeal under Section 19(1) within 30 days to the board's First Appellate Authority (the Member Secretary or regional head in most SPCBs). - No reply at all in 30 days → that is a deemed refusal; you can go straight to the first appeal. - Consent refused → ask for the speaking order and the file's notings; the Air and Water Acts provide an appeal to the appellate authority (usually the state Environment Secretary) within 30 days of the order. - Board sitting on inspection reports it commissioned → copy the report yourself under RTI; your unit's own file is the cheapest evidence you will ever get.

- Site verification “pending” for months — questions 2 and 3 above. - Category dispute (board treats you Red, you say Orange) — ask for the pollution-index scoring sheet applied to your activity. - Effluent/emission analysis reports not shared with you — ask for copies of the lab results relied on. - Renewal filed before expiry but consent lapsed — ask for the date the renewal application was marked complete, and every noting since. - Closure consent (CTC) for shutting down — same template, change the subject line.

- Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India (Supreme Court, 1996) — the polluter-pays and precautionary principles are part of Indian environmental law; boards exist to enforce them, and their inaction is exactly what an RTI exposes.

Not in the Water or Air Act as most states apply them — which is the problem. Your RTI reply is the one reply that does carry a statutory 30-day deadline.

The consent itself still comes from the board, but the Centre can now exempt categories and issue consent guidelines — worth checking whether your category was exempted before you chase a consent you may no longer need.

No. EC comes from the Centre or SEIAA under the EIA Notification 2006 for large projects; consent comes from the SPCB under the Water and Air Acts. A big project needs both.

Most SPCBs are attached to their state's RTI online portal where one exists; otherwise a printed application with a ₹10 IPO to the PIO of the regional office works everywhere.

Consent delay is not a technical problem; it is an accountability gap. The board can sit on a file forever — unless it must explain, in writing, within 30 days, why it has not. That is what the RTI converts a stuck consent into: a question with a deadline.

- Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974, §25; Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981, §21. - CPCB, Revised Classification of Industrial Sectors (March 2016) — category lists carried by state boards, e.g. MPCB's categorisation page. - The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act, 2024 — PRS India legislative track record. - Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum v. Union of India (1996) 5 SCC 647. - RTI Act 2005, §§6(1), 7(1), 19(1).

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Last reviewed: 27 August 2026. Consent sections of the Water and Air Acts, the CPCB March 2016 categorisation, and the 2024 Water Amendment's scope (Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and UTs; state adoption by resolution) verified against PRS India and state-board pages the same day. The un-sourced 120/90/30-day SLA table on the old page has been removed.