The deputies of all provincial environmental monitoring centers have been directed to announce the names of the most polluting industries in the country based on guidelines provided by the Department of Environment (DoE) through regular inspection and monitoring, Shina Ansari, head of the DoE’s environmental monitoring office said.
Preventive measures to control and eliminate environmental pollution caused by industries is essential, she said, reports Mehr news agency.
The list of polluting industries in each province will then be forwarded to the State Tax Organization (STO). Based on the law on value added tax (VAT), polluting industries should pay 1% of their sales revenue to the STO as “pollution toll.”
Evaluation
The DoE’s provincial offices oversee industries to help reduce environmental contamination.
“At the start of each season, we determine the list of industries which should be monitored after a thorough evaluation by the department,” she said.
The pollution caused by the industries and its severity will be determined based on “DoE criteria standards. All documents including laboratory analysis and warning letters will also be recorded in the DoE system,” she said.
In the past year (ended March 20, 2014), there were 3100 units contributing to pollution with the highest numbers in the provinces of Tehran, Khorasan Razavi, Khuzestan and Markazi respectively.
At present the DoE doesn’t have any jurisdiction on the manner in which pollution toll is expended, she noted. “Therefore regulation should be introduced to amend supervisory mechanism of the DoE from pollution detection and declaration to monitoring toll spending,” she added.
