What Air Pollution Is, and Why Noise Is Inside It
Chapter Forty-Two
Syllabus topic 3, "Pollution of Air"
Pages 190 to 193 of 783
In one line
An air pollutant is any solid, liquid or gaseous substance, including noise, present in the atmosphere at a concentration that may be or tends to be injurious.
In exam wording: section 2(a) of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981 defines an air pollutant as any solid, liquid or gaseous substance, including noise, present in the atmosphere in such concentration as may be or tend to be injurious to human beings or other living creatures or plants or property or environment, and section 2(b) defines air pollution as the presence in the atmosphere of any air pollutant.
The two definitions that carry the Act
Section 2(a), air pollutant.
"air pollutant" means any solid, liquid or gaseous substance [(including noise)] present in the atmosphere in such concentration as may be or tend to be injurious to human beings or other living creatures or plants or property or environment;
Section 2(b), air pollution.
"air pollution" means the presence in the atmosphere of any air pollutant;
The structure is exactly the Environment (Protection) Act's: a substance, a medium, a threshold, and then pollution defined as the presence of the polluting thing. Learn one and you have both.
The word in the square brackets
"(including noise)" was inserted by amendment. It was not in the Act as passed in 1981; it was added by the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act 1987.
Those two words are the entire statutory foundation of Module II. Without them India would have no regulatory law of noise at all, only the law of nuisance and the criminal machinery for public nuisance. With them, noise is inside a statute that already has Boards, standards, consent, powers of entry, directions, closure and penalties, and rules could be made for it.
And they sit oddly. Noise is not a solid, a liquid or a gas, so the definition includes within a class of substances something that is not a substance at all. The drafters solved a real problem in the shortest possible way and left an incoherence behind. Section 6(2)(b) of the Environment (Protection) Act does the same thing, empowering rules on the maximum allowable concentration of environmental pollutants "including noise", while that Act's own definition of an environmental pollutant is confined to solid, liquid and gaseous substances.
Say all of that in an examination and the answer will stand out, because most books simply record that noise is an air pollutant and move on.
Broken down
"Present in the atmosphere". The receiving medium is the atmosphere. Contrast the Water Act, whose medium is a stream or well, and the EPA, whose medium is water, air and land and their inter-relationships.
"In such concentration as may be or tend to be injurious". The threshold, in the same words as section 2(b) of the EPA. No harm need have occurred: "may be" is possibility and "tend to be" is disposition.
What Air Pollution Is, and Why Noise Is Inside It
"To human beings or other living creatures or plants or property or environment". Five objects of injury, and two of them are worth marking. Property is there, so damage to a building or a crop is enough. And environment is there as a separate object, so injury to the environment itself qualifies without any identified victim.
The rest of section 2, which is short and does real work
(c) approved appliance and (d) approved fuel: equipment or gadget, and fuel, approved by the State Board for the purposes of the Act. These matter because section 19 lets a State Government forbid the burning of anything but an approved fuel in an air pollution control area, and the approval is the Board's.
(e) automobile: any vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine or by any method of generating power to drive it by burning fuel. Note the limit: a vehicle that does not burn fuel is not an automobile for this Act, which is a definition written in 1981 and now facing a fleet that increasingly does not.
(h) chimney: includes any structure with an opening or outlet from or through which any air pollutant may be emitted. Very wide, and deliberately so: a vent, a duct, a hole in a wall.
(i) control equipment: any apparatus, device, equipment or system to control the quality and manner of emission, and includes any device used for securing the efficient operation of any industrial plant.
(j) emission: any solid or liquid or gaseous substance coming out of any chimney, duct or flue or any other outlet. Notice that the definition of emission does not include noise, although the definition of air pollutant does. So a provision framed around "emission" may not reach noise even though noise is a pollutant, and that is a real gap in the Act, which Module II takes up.
(k) industrial plant: any plant used for any industrial or trade purposes and emitting any air pollutant into the atmosphere.
(m) occupier: the person who has control over the affairs of the factory or premises, and, in relation to any substance, the person in possession of it. Word for word the Water Act's definition and almost word for word the EPA's.
(o) State Board: in a State where the Water Act is in force and a State Pollution Control Board has been constituted under section 4 of that Act, that Board; and in any other State, the Board constituted under section 5 of this Act. This is the provision that means there is one Board and not two.
What Air Pollution Is, and Why Noise Is Inside It
A worked example
A stone crushing unit operates beside a village. It emits dust from the crusher, and the crusher and the diesel generator together are loud enough to be heard inside the nearest houses at night.
Is the dust an air pollutant? Yes, if it is present in the atmosphere at a concentration that may be or tends to be injurious to human beings, plants, property or the environment. Dust deposited on crops and roofs engages property and plants as well as health.
Is the noise an air pollutant? Yes, because section 2(a) says so in terms. Noise is not a substance, and the definition includes it anyway.
Is the noise an "emission"? No. Section 2(j) defines emission as a solid, liquid or gaseous substance coming out of a chimney, duct, flue or other outlet, and noise is none of those and comes out of no outlet. So a section framed around emission, such as section 22 or the standards under section 17, does not fit noise, and the machinery that actually regulates it is the Noise Rules 2000 made under the Environment (Protection) Act.
That is the important structural point about noise in Indian law, and it is why Module II is anchored on rules made under the EPA rather than on the Air Act, even though the Air Act's definition is what makes noise a pollutant at all.
Is the crusher an industrial plant? Yes: a plant used for industrial or trade purposes and emitting an air pollutant.
Is the vent above the crusher a chimney? Yes, on the definition: any structure with an opening or outlet from or through which an air pollutant may be emitted.
Distinctions
| Air Act, section 2(a) | EPA, section 2(b) | |
|---|---|---|
| Substance | solid, liquid or gaseous, including noise | solid, liquid or gaseous |
| Medium | the atmosphere | the environment: water, air and land |
| Threshold | such concentration as may be or tend to be injurious | such concentration as may be, or tend to be, injurious |
| Objects of injury | human beings, other living creatures, plants, property, environment | environment, which itself includes property |
What it does NOT mean
It does not mean noise is a substance. The definition includes it despite its not being one, and the incoherence is on the face of the Act.
It does not mean noise is an emission. Section 2(j) confines emission to a solid, liquid or gaseous substance coming out of a chimney, duct, flue or other outlet.
It does not mean an electric vehicle is an automobile under this Act. Section 2(e) requires power generated by burning fuel.
It does not mean harm must be proved. The concentration need only be such as may be or tend to be injurious.
What Air Pollution Is, and Why Noise Is Inside It
Quick revision
- 2(a) air pollutant: any solid, liquid or gaseous substance including noise, present in the atmosphere, at a concentration as may be or tend to be injurious to human beings, other living creatures, plants, property or environment.
- "(including noise)" was inserted in 1987 and is the statutory foundation of Module II.
- 2(b) air pollution: the presence in the atmosphere of any air pollutant.
- 2(j) emission does not include noise: it is a substance coming out of a chimney, duct, flue or other outlet.
- 2(h) chimney is very wide: any structure with an opening or outlet through which a pollutant may be emitted.
- 2(e) automobile requires power by burning fuel. 2(k) industrial plant: industrial or trade purposes, emitting an air pollutant.
- 2(o) State Board: the Water Act Board where one exists, otherwise a Board under section 5 of this Act.
Test yourself
1. What are the three elements of the definition of an air pollutant? A solid, liquid or gaseous substance, including noise; presence in the atmosphere; and presence in such concentration as may be or tend to be injurious to human beings, other living creatures, plants, property or the environment. The third element is the threshold, and it does not require that any harm has occurred.
2. When were the words "including noise" added, and what do they achieve? They were inserted by the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act 1987; the Act as passed in 1981 did not contain them. They bring noise inside a statute that already provides Boards, standards, consent, powers of entry, directions, closure and penalties, and they are the reason India has a regulatory law of noise at all rather than only the law of nuisance.
3. Is noise an "emission" within the Act? No. Section 2(j) defines emission as any solid or liquid or gaseous substance coming out of any chimney, duct or flue or any other outlet, and noise is neither a substance nor something that comes out of an outlet. So provisions framed around emission do not fit noise, which is why the operative law of noise is the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000, made under the Environment (Protection) Act.
4. Why is there only one Board in a State for both water and air? Because of section 2(o) read with section 4. The definition of State Board provides that in a State where the Water Act is in force and a State Pollution Control Board has been constituted under section 4 of that Act, the State Board for the purposes of this Act is that Board, and a fresh Board is constituted under section 5 only where there is none. Parliament used the existing machinery rather than duplicating it.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.