New Delhi: The Union environment ministry has just amended the guidelines to establish and operate industries under the Air and Water Acts of 1981 and 1974. Among the many changes that the amendment brings about is ensuring that industries – including highly-polluting ones – will no longer have to renew their permissions under the Acts repeatedly, and will now have to wait for only a shorter period to obtain permission under the Acts for both establishment and operation.The move, per the ministry, is aimed chiefly to ensure “ease of doing business”. However, that is a reason that the government has often cited while diluting several existing environmental legislations in the past. Though the ministry claims that this amendment will ‘strengthen environmental compliance’, environmentalists told The Wire that this is questionable given existing concerns about implementation and enforcement that India is witnessing at the moment, particularly when it comes to tackling pollution.Guidelines for industriesTo prevent and limit pollution, industries have to seek permission under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 to set up plants and operate. These permissions differ depending on the category that the industry falls under – Red, Orange, Green or White. Red category industries are those that have a Pollution Index of 60 or more; the most polluting industries such as fall in this category. In the Orange category are included industries such as , which have a Pollution Index of 41-59. (Per the Central Pollution Control Board, the Pollution Index – which ranges from 0 to 100, higher values signifying a higher pollution load to the environment – is a function of the emissions (air pollutants), effluents (water pollutants), hazardous waste generated by the industry and the amount of resources it consumes.) The Air and Water Acts specify the actions that the Union, and state governments – through their respective State Pollution Control Boards or Pollution Control Committees – have to conduct to ensure that industries comply with rules. For instance, per the Central Pollution Control Board, SPCBs/PCCs have to inspect Red, Orange, and Green categories of industries at a minimum inspection frequency of 6 months, 1 year and 2 years, for verification of compliance of environmental norms. Industries have to obtain permits such as Consent to Establish (CTE) and Consent to Operate (CTO) from SPCBs. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change first notified the Guidelines for the Grant, Refusal or Cancellation of Consent under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, on January 29 and 30, 2025, respectively. According to the ministry, these guidelines establish a uniform consent mechanism “introducing streamlined, single-step procedure for obtaining consent and authorisation”, and prescribe timelines for grant or refusal of consent within a specified period based on the category an industry belongs to (Red, Orange or Green). On January 28 this year, the Union environment ministry announced that it had amended these Uniform Consent Guidelines under the Air and Water Acts (as specified by the notification in January last year).“The move is aimed at reducing procedural delays and strengthening environmental governance. The Guidelines issued last year provide a uniform framework for granting, refusing or cancelling Consent to Establish (CTE) and Consent to Operate (CTO). These guidelines ensure consistency, transparency and accountability in consent management across the country,” the ministry said in a press release.No separate permitsOne main change that the new amendments bring about is that SPCBs can now process a single application to issue “integrated permissions” covering consents under the Air and Water Acts along with authorisations under various Waste Management Rules. “Integrated consents reduce multiple applications, timelines for approvals are shortened, and strong provisions for monitoring, compliance and cancellation remain in place,” the ministry said in its statement on January 28. “The amendments aim to ensure faster, clearer and more efficient approval processes while maintaining environmental safeguards, while supporting the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) in processing consent applications and conducting inspections.” Another big change is that as per the amendment, once an industry receives the Consent to Operate, the permit will remain valid until it is cancelled. Earlier, CTOs had to be renewed regularly following checks.“This removes the need for repeated renewals, reduces paperwork, compliance burden on industries and ensures continuity of industrial operations,” the ministry’s statement read.Other changes include a decrease in the processing time for the grant of consent to Red Category industries from 120 days to 90 days; and, the siting of industries will now be governed by a “site-specific environmental assessment” that takes into account local, site-specific features such as proximity to water bodies, settlements, monuments and ecologically sensitive areas, per the ministry.A Consent to Establish permit is “deemed to be granted” to Micro and Small Enterprises located in notified industrial estates or areas if they submit a self-certified application, “as the land has already been assessed from an environmental perspective”, according to the ministry.Per the amendments, apart from SPCB officers, Registered Environmental Auditors – certified under the Environment Audit Rules, 2025 – too can conduct site visits and verify compliance of industries. The Rules, published by the Union environment ministry in August last year had said that private agencies too can get themselves accredited through a new Environment Audit Designated Agency. However, experts had raised concerns. If the Environment Audit Designated Agency is not kept independent, it risks becoming pliant to industry or government pressures, Debadityo Sinha (lead, climate and ecosystems, at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy) had told Mongabay-India.As per the ministry’s statement, the amendments balance “ease of doing business with environmental protection through continuous monitoring, trust-based governance and a uniform national consent mechanism.”Enforcement an issueHowever, these amendments under the Air and Water Acts are unlikely to ‘strengthen environmental governance’ – as the Union environment ministry claims – for several reasons, conservationist Debi Goenka told The Wire. While the Guidelines notified in January last year refer to an online continuous monitoring system that is mandatory for industries to obtain Consent to Operate, real-time monitoring is failing, said Goenka. There is the issue of implementation, and obtaining actual data that is not manipulated by tampering with sensors or not maintaining them regularly, Goenka, who used to be part of the Environment Appraisal Committee of the Union environment ministry, said.“Data then becomes meaningless…Most of the existing systems in place for real-time monitoring are not working, so how do they expect this to work,” asked Goenka, citing the example of the Union government giving average figures for the Air Quality Index in cities when averages for such an Index do not work. Another is a lack of manpower. “If you look at the number of industries in Maharashtra and the number of staff on the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board, it is physically impossible for them to do an inspection even of just red category industries once a year.” There is a blatant lack of enforcement, said Goenka: “So what difference does it really make at the ground level? There has to be a system of checks and balances and cross-verification by an independent agency.”And of course, there’s corruption. Some state pollution control boards are among the most corrupt departments in the country, Goenka said. “I’ve heard of cases where companies deliver samples to the board but they are never tested,” he told The Wire. “So then it just becomes a means of extortion.”Double standards?The ministry’s amendments of the Uniform Consent Guidelines to ensure “ease of doing business” is in line with what Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav has been saying about the importance of ease of doing business for India’s economy. Most recently, at the Confederation of Real Estate Developer Associations of India (CREDAI) National Conclave 2025 in New Delhi on December 19, Yadav said that ease of doing business “cannot come at the cost of environmental safeguards, nor should environmental protection lead to avoidable delays”.At the Conclave, Yadav also urged the real estate sector to adopt energy-efficient designs, circular construction practices and green buildings. With the real estate sector’s impact on energy use, water consumption, waste generation, air quality and urban heat, Yadav said that the real estate sector was central to India’s climate commitments, including the Net Zero target by 2070; he called for the sector to adopt climate-resilient urban planning, including flood-resilient layouts, heat-adaptive materials, increased green cover and sustainable mobility solutions.But for all its talk to reduce pollution and taking steps to tackle climate change, the Union government doesn’t walk the talk when it comes to pollution and policy, Goenka commented. Recently, the Union environment ministry exempted a majority of coal-powered thermal power plants from installing flue-gas desulphurisation systems. The notification, published by the ministry in July last year, drew a lot of flak because the technology helps remove more than 90% of sulphur emissions from thermal power plants at their source, as The Wire had reported. “What are the consequences of this, pollution will only rise,” Goenka said. “The government is allowing the increase of pollution.”