45% positions in pollution boards vacant; 16.28% vacancies in CPCB: Govt data

NBetimes 45% of scientific and technological positions in pollution verify boards crossways the rural area are vacant, the Union environment ministry has informed Lok Sabha.There are 16.28% vacancies in the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Kirti Vardhan Singh, minister of state (MoS) for environment, said on December 8. Singh was responding to questions by Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) MP, Rathnavel Sachithanantham.Sachithanantham asked whether the CPCB and state pollution control boards (SPCBs), which are our primary line of defense for environmental monitoring and enforcement, are critically crippled by a severe shortage of field-level staff, such as environmental engineers and scientists. He also asked the details of current total sanctioned strength and the number of vacant positions for field-level staff in the CPCB and all SPCBs combined and the details of the concrete plan and timeline proposed by the government to address this chronic manpower shortage.In reply, Singh said there are 393 sanctioned scientific and technical positions in CPCB of which 64 are vacant; 6,137 positions in state pollution control boards of which 2,921 are vacant; 402 positions in pollution control committees of which 176 are vacant. Totally, 3,161 positions out of 6,932 are vacant.“The state pollution control boards and pollution control committees are under the administrative control of respective State Governments/UT Administration and the responsibility to fill up vacancies in SPCBs/PCCs lies with the concerned State Govt./ UT Administration. Further, appointment of officers and employees of the State Pollution Control Boards and Pollution Control Committees is done by the SPCBs/PCCs under their respective regulation,” the minister said.The development comes at a time when Delhi-NCR is battling severe air pollution. Pollution control boards (PCBs) are responsible for maintaining air and water quality.HT had reported on September 3 that the Union environment ministry has put in place an environment monitoring framework comprising environment auditing through registered environment auditors.Also Read: Why COP30’s trade turn matters, despite CBAMThe ministry notified the Environment Audit Rules 2025 on August 29 which help identify projects that are in violation of environmental regulations among other provisions, according to the notification.Experts have flagged in the past about the capacity crunch in pollution control boards and the lack of adequate monitoring of various infrastructure and industry projects on whether they are complying with environmental and forest laws and clearance conditions.