| Abstract Title: | India’s CEMS Quality assurance and Standards – a hybrid system of the EU and the US system |
| Presenter Name: | Mr Sanjeev K Kanchan |
| Company/Organisation: | Centre for Science and Environment |
| Country: | India |
Abstract Information :
To catapult the environmental governance in industries, India moved to adopt new age real time monitoring and reporting system. Since February 2014, the 17 category of highly polluting industries like steel, power, cement, petrochemical, chemicals etc. were directed to start continuous emission and effluent monitoring and reporting system. The common pollution treatment facilities such as waste incinerators and common effluent treatment plants were mandated to installed real time monitors for effluent and air pollution. In three years of time, installation of monitors was ensured for nearly 80% however any significant benefit was yet to be seen. When explored, absence of guidelines, standards and quality assurance system were found the missing pillars. And to improve the situation, learning from last more than three decades of experience from the EU and US was felt needed.
Established standards and quality assurance systems in the EU and the US was decided to be followed but with adequate modifications to suit the present capacity and available regulatory framework in India. Length of consultation, Centre for Science and Environment in consultation with Source Testing Association played a key role, helped the government to develop the guidelines for CEMS. The present guidelines released in August 2017 have significant influence of EU and the US system.
European system of quality assurance levels has been followed to a length such as QAL1 for certified (EN 14181) equipments, QAL2 for calibration process during installation and QA3 for regular maintenance. For non-certified equipments, performance check of equipment during installation is mandated, in the same line as the US system. The Indigenous equipment certification system is something that the government wish to take-up in future (following EN15267), but as of now recommends use of MCERTS and TUV certified equipments. Compliance check of the data has not been taken-up till date since the implementation is in stabilization stage but recommended to use time-average data for this purpose. Calibration and recalibration, zero and span checks schedule, similar to QA2, QA3 of the EU have been also encouraged.
The presentation will share the installation issues explored before guidelines, key provisions of the CEMS guidelines highlighting requirement of quality assurance, quality control, and compliance check schedules. It will share the provisions followed in the EU and US systems. Need of certification system and laboratory capacity to perform CEMS related jobs and the opportunities for international expert agencies will be highlighted. Since most of the technology and service providers in India are multinationals updated information might be very useful for them. Leading expert agencies for certification and laboratory experience, service of which India need very soon, may use the updated information for future opportunities in Indian market.
