Authorities in the state can now monitor the various industries including those categorised as ‘red’ at the click of a mouse. The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board is set to launch, with the help of Institute of Remote Sensing (IRS) at Anna University, a ‘Web based geo spatial services’ portal that will use satellite maps to keep tabs on industries categorised according to their functioning.
TNPCB chairman A V Venkatachalam said details such as location of the industry, type, category, various information relating to consent, consented quantity, renewal status, whether discharge/ emission protocols are followed, similar category of industry in the vicinity, nearby river or water body in to which effluents are discharged will be available on the portal.
The intranet system, under which priority of access is based on hierarchy, can be of great use in emergencies such as leakage of poisonous gases and can help the authorities concerned make on-site and offsite rescue and rehabilitation plans, using details about the number of villages located near the industry, the number of people living there and how far the leakage will impact them, he said.
IRS director D Thirumalaivasan said maps used in the portal can be updated periodically. The National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), which is providing satellite maps for institutions like Anna University, has relaxed the norms for getting such maps.
The TNPCB has also proposed to link the air and water quality data, which is being generated through its monitoring systems functioning in various parts of the state, Venkatachalam said.
The state government is keen on taking the functioning of the board to the next level with the use of technology. “The launching of the web-based GeoSpatial Services (GSS) portal is the first of its kind in the country. It will act as a decision support system to monitor at field and top level the industrial consents and authorizations issued by the pollution control board,” he added.
Prof Srinivasa Raju of the IRS said all the industries in the state will be mapped from satellite images collected from Resourcesat, an Indian remote sensing satellite with a 5.8m spatial resolution. Satellite images of the industries along with the infrastructure and resources up to a radius of 5km around every industry will be mapped. “For data collection, we will develop a mobile app which will be given to all TNPCB field officers who will visit the industries and geotag the latlong location. With that information, we will get the satellite images from the NRSA,” he said. (Times of India)
