The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has brought into effect the Environment Audit Rules, 2025, that allows the vital activity of environmental monitoring and auditing to go beyond the remit of State Pollution Control Boards.

Present Monitoring Framework

• Existing Institutions: Environmental monitoring is currently undertaken by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Regional Offices of MoEFCC, and the State Pollution Control Boards/Pollution Control Committees.
• Capacity Constraints: These institutions face serious limitations in terms of manpower, resources, infrastructure, and technical capacity.
• Impact: As a result, they have been unable to ensure effective monitoring and enforcement of compliance across the vast number of industries and projects operating in India.

Key Provisions of the New Rules

• Accreditation of Agencies: The rules provide for private agencies to get accredited as environment auditors, thereby expanding the pool of compliance monitors.
• Licensing Model: Much like chartered accountants, environment auditors will receive licenses and official authorisation from the government to conduct audits.
• Audit Functions: These auditors will be responsible for evaluating whether projects comply with environmental laws and whether they are adopting best practices in the prevention, control, and abatement of pollution.

Expanding Scope of Environmental Regulation

• Shift in Approach: Environmental regulation is no longer limited to policing and bookkeeping, but now incorporates broader concerns of sustainability and climate change.
• Green Credit Linkage: Environmental audits will also be used for compliance with the Green Credit Rules, under which tradeable credits can be earned for activities such as afforestation, sustainable water management, and waste management.
• Carbon Accounting: Nearly every company in India will be required to account for both direct and indirect carbon emissions as part of compliance requirements.
• Need for Expertise: This form of complex carbon and environmental accounting is beyond the traditional capacity of Pollution Control Board officials and demands specialised expertise.

Opportunities of new rules

• Bridge Gaps: The new rules can help bridge existing manpower and infrastructure gaps in environmental monitoring and compliance.
• Climate Preparedness: They also prepare India for future climate obligations by embedding climate-linked accountability into business practices.

Challenges of new rules

• Risk of Neglect: The shift towards high-level audits should not come at the expense of the core responsibility of on-ground monitoring by Pollution Control Boards.
• Grassroots Violations: The most serious violations usually occur at the district, block, and panchayat levels, where environmental damage often escapes regulatory attention.
• Enforcement Gap: These local-level issues remain unaddressed largely because of the absence of adequate trained staff to conduct regular inspections and enforcement.

Way Forward

• Local Empowerment: The new system must empower and strengthen local-level institutions at the district, block, and panchayat levels so that grassroots violations are not overlooked.
• Balanced Approach: A balance must be maintained between high-level climate and carbon accounting on one side and core ground-level compliance checks on the other.
• Accountability of Auditors: Strong accountability measures must be put in place for private auditors to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure credibility in the auditing process.

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