Reports indicate that the cement industry has been slow in implementing air pollution norms. Less than 5 per cent of the plants have taken steps to comply with the air pollution norms, notified by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) in 2014. As of now, 194 cement plants have to fully comply with the notification by June 30, 2016. The MoEF had asked all 194 cement plants in the country to reduce their particulate matter emission by a third. Similarly, SO2 and NOx emissions are also to be reduced. But most of the plants have neither placed the orders for setting up pollution control units nor given any contracts for retrofitting the existing units.
According to industry estimates, a number of plants are spewing out about 100 mg/Nm3 of particulate matter, which has to be reduced to 30 mg/Nm3 by either setting up new Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) units or retrofitting the existing ones.