Bhubaneswar: The 135th Board Meeting of the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) held at Lok Seva Bhawan here on Thursday focused on tech-driven governance, sustainability and coastal protection.
Chaired by Chief Secretary Anu Garg and attended by Member Secretary Dr Manoj V. Nair along with senior officials, the meeting charted a futuristic roadmap for environmental protection and pollution control across the state.
Placing strong emphasis on modernisation, the board prioritised upgrading the Centre for Management of Coastal Ecosystem (CMCE) at Paradeep into a premier Nodal Centre of Excellence. Smt. Garg noted that the facility should evolve beyond a standard laboratory into an integrated hub of science, data, and technology dedicated to safeguarding Odisha’s coastal environment.
To enhance real-time monitoring and enforcement, the state will establish a state-of-the-art Command-and-Control Centre at the OSPCB Headquarters in Nayapalli, Bhubaneswar. This hub will integrate field data, water sample analyses, and laboratory metrics for rapid decision-making. Furthermore, OSPCB plans to deploy advanced robotic technology for assessing water quality in rivers, ponds, estuaries, and seas, alongside drones for comprehensive field surveillance. New regional office buildings equipped with green building features, solar energy, rainwater harvesting, and vermicomposting will also come up in Kataka, Jharsuguda, Koraput, Kalinganagar, Bhubaneswar, Keonjhar, and Sambalpur.
Addressing industrial sustainability, the meeting highlighted the creation of the Odisha Fly Ash Atlas to map generation, availability, and demand seamlessly. Innovative research projects focusing on bio-stabilisation and bio-transformation of fly ash will also be undertaken in partnership with premier academic institutions to turn industrial waste into valuable resources for sustainable agriculture.
Bridging the gap between administration and the public, the Chief Secretary called for simplified, highly visual, and data-driven citizen annual reports. To foster grassroots awareness, OSPCB will distribute interactive comic and e-comic books among school and college students.
Concluding the high-level meeting, Garg emphasised that OSPCB must stand as a true symbol of care and responsibility toward the environment, calling for coordinated efforts to build a transparent, scientific, and citizen-centric governance framework.