Now You, the Ciitizen, can Monitor Air Pollution! A Collaborative Experimental Initiative in Maharashtra

Citizens, journalists and policy makers can now find the state of industrial pollution in their areas with a click. They can log on to the MPCB website (http://mpcb.info) to access report cards of industries in their area thanks to a collaboration between the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) Energy Policy Institute at University of Chicago (EPIC). In June 2017, the in association with the launched a new Star Rating Programme to track air pollution. The programmeme uses modern data-metrics on smoke-stack emissions to rate the industries based on the fine particulate matter emitted from their smoke-stacks. The industries are starred, five being the highest rating and one being the lowest based on their performance. But, since sampling results are not very comprehensible to the general public, MPCB is turning these pollution readings into an easy-to-understand Star Rating. Aritra Chakrabarty chatted with Anant Sudarshan, Executive Director (South Asia) for The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and heading the EPIC-India programme on behalf of eSocialSciences. Here is the exclusive interview.