Centre eases uniform consent guidelines under air, water laws

New Delhi: The government on Wednesday amended the guidelines under the laws dealing with air and water pollution, allowing the consent granted to industries to operate their ventures to remain valid until it is cancelled.

An official statement said the Uniform Consent Guidelines, notified under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, have been amended to further streamline the consent mechanism for industries across all states and Union territories.

The statement said a major amendment relates to the validity of the Consent to Operate (CTO).

"Under the amended guidelines, CTO, once granted, will remain valid until it is cancelled," it said, adding that environmental compliance will continue to be enforced through periodic inspections.

The statement said the consent can be cancelled in case of violations.

"This removes the need for repeated renewals, reduces paperwork, compliance burden on industries and ensures continuity of industrial operations. Further, the processing time for grant of consent to Red Category industries has been reduced from 120 days to 90 days," the statement said.

It also removes uncertainty and disruption in operations due to delays in the renewal of the CTO, it added.

The statement said an important reform is the provision for Consolidated Consent and Authorisation. State pollution control boards (SPCBs) can now process a common application and issue integrated permissions covering consents under the Air and Water Acts, along with authorisations under various Waste Management Rules, it said.

The statement said integrated consents reduce multiple applications, timelines for approvals are shortened, and strong provisions for monitoring, compliance and cancellation remain in place.

"The amendments aim to ensure faster, clearer and more efficient approval processes, while maintaining environmental safeguards, supporting the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) and Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) in processing consent applications and conducting inspections," it said.

The guidelines issued last year provide a uniform framework for granting, refusing or cancelling the Consent to Establish (CTE) and the CTO.

To further speed up processing, the amended guidelines allow registered environmental auditors, certified under the Environment Audit Rules, 2025, to conduct site visits and verify compliance, in addition to inspections by SPCB officers.

This strengthens verification while enabling boards to focus more on high-risk industries and enforcement.

Special provisions have been introduced for micro and small enterprises located in notified industrial estates or areas.

For such units, the CTE is deemed granted upon the submission of a self-certified application, as the land has already been assessed from an environmental perspective.

Further, the amended guidelines also replace the rigid minimum-distance siting criteria with site-specific environmental assessment, allowing competent authorities to stipulate appropriate safeguards based on local facts and circumstances like proximity to water bodies, settlements, monuments and ecologically-sensitive areas, the statement said.

The amendments also allow the states and Union territories to prescribe a one-time CTO fee for a period ranging from five to 25 years, doing away with repetitive fee collection and administrative processing.

A clear and uniform definition of "capital investment" has been introduced in Schedule II to remove ambiguity in fee assessment and ensure consistency across states.

The amendments retain safeguards for refusal or cancellation of consent in cases of non-compliance with standards, violations of consent conditions, environmental damage or location in prohibited areas.

The revised framework balances ease of doing business with environmental protection through continuous monitoring, trust-based governance and a uniform national consent mechanism, the statement said.