New Delhi, Apr 3 (KNN) With a view to control pollution level, the Union Environment Ministry has set emission standards for industries emitting nitrogen and sulphur oxides.

Since emission of these gases is a serious threat to both health and environment, therefore it has become the need of an hour to take stringent measures in controlling them.

In this direction, earlier also in the month of December 2015, the Ministry had set emission standards for coal-based power plants which were to be complied by December 2017, but not a single plant followed the command.

In a recent notification, the ministry said that considering the urgency, it has decided to waive of public consultations before fixing the policy.

Further, it has been mentioned in the notification that as per the ambient air quality standard data, the level of NO2 pollution and particulate matter has increased which has further worsened the air quality.

The standards of emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) covers industries including ceramic, foundry or metal casting, glass, lime kilns and reheating furnances.

According to the new standards, emitting units for SO2 are 200 units for ceramics, 300 units for foundries, 500 (natural gas) and 1,500 (other fuel types) for glass units, 400 units for lime kilns and 300 units for reheating furnance.

Similarly for NOx, the standards set are 600 units for ceramics, 400 units for foundries, 1,000 (other fuel types) for glass, 500 units for lime kilns and 1,000 units for reheating furnance.

And Units for both NOx and SO2 is micro gram per cubic nano meters.

According to Ministry Notification dated March 22, these rules may be called the Environment (Protection) Amendment Rules, 2018 which shall come into force on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette.

According to recent Greenpeace report 'Airpocalypse II' 80 per cent of the cities in the country is severely polluted and this impacts 47 million children across the country. (KNN/YV)