Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974

Also called: Water Act · Topic: Geographical Issues: Pollution, Urban Waste, Slums and Land Degradation · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 4 "Water Resources"

Meaning

The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974, or Water Act, is India's first major pollution law. It set up the Central and State Pollution Control Boards. Under it, an industry needs consent (permission) from the pollution control board before it sets up a unit or releases effluent into a river, a sewer or onto land.

It matters because it is the main legal tool for keeping dirty water out of India's rivers and lakes. Its weak enforcement is a big reason why so many river stretches are still polluted today.

Explanation

Why a law was needed

• Water can clean itself only up to a limit.
• Flowing water takes in oxygen from the air. Microbes use this oxygen to break down dirt. This natural cleaning is called self-purifying capacity.

• Too much suspended, organic and inorganic waste goes beyond this capacity. Microbes then use up the dissolved oxygen, fish die and the water smells.

• Industry was the biggest human source.

• Factories such as tanneries (leather), pulp and paper, textile and chemical units dumped effluent (liquid factory waste), heavy metals and poisonous gases straight into rivers and lakes.

• Heavy metals such as lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium do not break down. They build up in fish and then in humans.

• So a law was needed to control what goes into water bodies.

How the Act works

• Pollution control boards. There is one central board (CPCB) for the whole country and a board in each state. They set standards, check water quality and give or refuse consent.
• Consent rule. This is the Act's key tool:
• An industry must get the board's consent before setting up a unit.
• It also needs consent before discharging effluent into a river, a sewer or onto land.

• The board can set conditions on how clean the effluent must be.

• Standards to measure against. CPCB sets water quality criteria. For outdoor bathing water these are:

• BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), the oxygen microbes use to break down organic matter, must be 3 mg/l or less [4].
• Dissolved oxygen (DO) must be 5 mg/l or more [4].
• pH must be 6.5–8.5 [4].
• Faecal coliform (bacteria from faeces, a sign of sewage): 500 MPN/100 ml desirable, 2,500 MPN/100 ml maximum [4].

Why it has not fully worked

• Weak enforcement.
• NCERT (1997) noted 251 polluting industries along rivers and lakes.

• Enforcement was poor, so effluents kept flowing in.

• The law mainly targets industry, but sewage now matters most.

• Cities produce 72,368 MLD of sewage (MLD: million litres a day) [3].
• Only 20,235 MLD, about 28%, is actually treated [3].

• 52,133 MLD goes into rivers, lakes and the ground untreated [3].

• Treatment plants often fail the norms. Of the 900 working STPs (sewage treatment plants) whose status is known, only 578 (12,200 MLD) met the norms set by the state boards [3].

• Farm runoff has no single outlet. Fertilisers and pesticides wash in from many fields, so a consent system built around single outlets cannot easily control them.

Where it occurs

• Where it operates: all of India. It is carried out by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the State Pollution Control Boards. It came into force in 1974.
• Where it has failed most: the worst polluted stretches lie downstream of big cities and industrial clusters:
• Yamuna below Delhi: toxic white foam floats on the river.
• Ganga at Kanpur (tanneries) and at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.
• Sabarmati at Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
• Musi at Hyderabad, Telangana (a tributary of the Krishna).
• Gomti at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (a tributary of the Ganga).

• Cooum at Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

• Scale of the problem (CPCB 2022): 311 polluted stretches on 279 rivers, down from 351 in 2018 [2]. Maharashtra has the most (55), followed by Madhya Pradesh (19), Bihar and Kerala (18 each) and Karnataka (17) [2].

• Follow-up programmes: the National River Conservation efforts and Namami Gange (2014). Namami Gange works in the Ganga basin. It mainly builds STPs and checks industrial outflow.

Don't confuse with

• Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981: deals with air, not water, and came after the Water Act. The order is Water Act 1974 → Air Act 1981 → Environment (Protection) Act 1986.
• Environment (Protection) Act 1986: a later, wider umbrella law for the whole environment. The Water Act covers only water pollution.
• Namami Gange (2014): a programme that builds STPs in the Ganga basin. It is not a law and does not give consent to industries.
• CPCB bathing water criteria: these are quality standards (BOD ≤3 mg/l, DO ≥5 mg/l) [4] used to judge water. The consent rule is the legal tool that controls discharges.

Prelims Hooks

• Water Act 1974 is India's first major pollution law. It came before the Air Act (1981) and the Environment (Protection) Act (1986).
• The Act's key tool is consent to discharge: board permission is needed before setting up a unit or releasing effluent into a river, a sewer or onto land.
• NCERT (1997): 251 polluting industries along rivers and lakes. This shows the Act's weak implementation.
• Trap: NCERT names industry as the biggest human source of water pollution. For polluted river stretches today, CPCB data show untreated urban sewage as the main cause.
• A polluted river stretch is one where BOD is above 3 mg/l. CPCB 2022 counted 311 stretches on 279 rivers, down from 351 (2018) [2].
• River–city pairs: Musi–Hyderabad, Cooum–Chennai, Gomti–Lucknow, Sabarmati–Ahmedabad.

Mains Points

• Weak enforcement of a sound law: the Water Act 1974 set up pollution boards and a consent system, but poor enforcement let effluents keep flowing (NCERT: 251 polluting industries, 1997). The worst stretches still lie below cities and industrial belts: Yamuna–Delhi, Ganga–Kanpur, Musi–Hyderabad.
• Change in the main polluter: the law was built around factory outlets, but untreated sewage is now the core problem. Only about 28% of 72,368 MLD of urban sewage is treated, and 52,133 MLD goes out untreated [3]. Only 578 of 900 checked working STPs met the norms [3]. The result is high BOD, low DO and water-borne disease downstream. WHO estimates about one-fourth of India's communicable diseases are water-borne.
• Policy response and gaps (GS-III): Namami Gange (2014) moved the focus to building STPs, and polluted stretches fell from 351 (2018) to 311 (2022) [2]. Still needed:
• Strict enforcement of consent conditions.
• Real-time monitoring of factory effluent.
• Full use of existing STPs and reuse of treated sewage.
• Control of farm runoff and of crowd pollution at religious fairs.

Related concepts

• Water pollution
• Water-borne diseases
• Biochemical oxygen demand
• Polluted river stretches
• Sewage treatment gap

Read more

• Water pollution: sources, measurement and health