State ranks 6th in green index

The Environment Performance Index (EPI), prepared by the Planning Commission, has placed Odisha at sixth rank among the 28 States and seven Union Territories. The ranking assumes significance in view of the plan panel’s decision to link EPI with fund devolution for the States.

The EPI assesses the States on five criteria and measures the environmental well-being of the State. The latest index reveals that Odisha has performed well in all but two criteria.In the air pollution category, the State ranks 11th, while under the forests criteria (which indicates forest management), it gets sixth rank. In climate change, Odisha has been ranked third.

However, in water quality and waste management, the State’s rank is below par. It stands 17th in water quality and 22nd in waste management. For each of the categories, a score of 1 (the highest to be scored) means cleaner environment, adherences to environmental standards, including implementation of legislation and institutional mechanism and initiatives for national resource conservation. The five categories comprise 16 different indicators. The cumulative EPI of Odisha was calculated at 0.6539.

What makes the EPI important is the weightage it carries this time. Adviser to the Planning Commission Dr Indrani Chandrasekharan, in a letter to Chief Secretary B K Patnaik, said the panel is considering to take the EPI forward by including environmental performance under the performance criterion in the Gadgil Formula and assign 2 per cent weightage for the same. The Chief Secretary has already circulated the EPI among the departments asking them to improve the performance so that the ranking could go further up in the coming years.

In fact, a detailed analysis of the EPI reveals that only Andhra Pradesh is among the major States which  got a better ranking since rest in the top are North-Eastern States, where industrialisation is low. Besides, Odisha’s ranking could have been better but for its poor performance in waste disposal.  “The two factors that figure prominently is sewerage disposal into the rivers and solid waste management. Both have their origin in how municipal bodies handle waste,” said Member-Secretary of Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) Sidhanta Das.

Disposal of sewerage from cities into the rivers has led to pollution in the downstream. Water quality monitoring by the OSPCB reveals that out of the 36 parameters assessed at 75 stations in the State, 34 indicators are within the normal limits. Just bio-chemical oxygen and total colliform levels exceed the prescribed limits and that too in downstream of the rivers. Similarly, solid waste management is another area of concern which has affected the ranking in waste management. “If we improve our performance in these two segments, EPI ranking would go further up,” Das said.