From April 1, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) will be online tracking the disposal of hazardous waste generated by various industries to ensure transparency. Regarding this, a notification was issued by the board on March 31 to all industries. The e-Manifest has been introduced under the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules 2016.
Srinivasulu, Member-Secretary, KSPCB, said “Under this rule, industries must compulsorily maintain a ‘hazardous waste manifest’, which is a shipping document prepared and signed by the authorised sender that travels from the point of generation to the final treatment, storage and disposal facility.”
He added, “The objective behind the manifest is to track hazardous waste from the time it leaves the generator facility of the industry to the off-waste management facility that will store, treat or dispose the waste. The whole process was done manually all along which was tedious. To simplify the process, an IT initiative in the form of e-Manifest has been taken up by us across Karnataka now.
TNIE has a copy of the notification which describes e-Manifest as: “This is a web-based application which enables registration and collection of hazardous wastes, transaction control, transparency in operations, accountability at all levels, sustainability and convenience to all stakeholders.” Srinivasulu said that tens of thousands of industries dispose of waste daily and it is physically impossible to cross-check the manual applications regularly.
