Does not apply as set · Consent attaches to industrial plants; a shop is outside it unless it runs a listed activity

Pollution Board consent

Consent to Establish and to Operate, under the Water and Air Acts.

Act/Rule-sourced

Whose rules these are: Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
When you need it — water: Anyone proposing to establish an industrial plant, process, or treatment or disposal system — or to expand one — likely to discharge sewage or trade effluent into a stream, well, sewer or onto land needs the Board's consent.
When you need it — air: The whole of Karnataka is an air pollution control area, so an industrial plant within it needs the Board's prior consent before emitting air pollutants beyond the prescribed standards.
Two consents, not one: Consent to Establish comes first, before anything is built. Consent to Operate comes before the plant runs, and is renewed. Expansion needs its own consent.
Applying: The Board takes applications through its XGN portal, which also publishes a register of the consent orders it has issued.

If you are White category, none of this applies

A White category industry is outside the consent mechanism altogether — the Board's own list says so in terms. Not a shorter validity or a smaller fee: no Consent to Establish and no Consent to Operate. White is also exempt from hazardous-waste authorisation. The current Red, Orange, Green and White lists are per the Board's notification of 27 July 2020.

What consent costs

Under the Water Act: Rule 32(2), Table I(a) of the Karnataka Water Rules, 1976, as substituted by Notification No. FEE 251 EPC 2016 (i) of 22 October 2021.
Under the Air Act: Rule 20(1), Table I(a) of the Karnataka Air Rules, 1983, as substituted by Notification No. FEE 251 EPC 2016 (ii) of the same date.
Where both are printed: Both are printed in the Karnataka Gazette, Volume 156, Issue 169, of 26 October 2021.
Not the 1998 notification: Not notification FEE 115 ENV 95(P) of 19 February 1998, which is what the Board's own 2019 validity notification still points at for fees. That one is superseded.
The two tables agree: The two tables are identical, band for band. Which matters because of who pays twice — see below.
Who pays under both Acts: A Red Category industry covered by the EIA notification applies in both Form-1 and Form-XIII and pays a consent fee under EACH Act. Everyone else pays one. An EIA project needing a public hearing pays a further 10 per cent towards paper notification.

Consent fee per year, by capital investment — the same table under each Act, covering Consent to Establish, consent to expansion and Consent to Operate alike.

₹1 lakh and below: ₹400
Over ₹1 lakh, below ₹5 lakh: ₹1,000
Over ₹5 lakh to ₹10 lakh: ₹3,000
Over ₹10 lakh to ₹25 lakh: ₹4,000
Over ₹25 lakh to ₹50 lakh: ₹6,000
Over ₹50 lakh to ₹1 crore: ₹12,000
Over ₹1 crore to ₹5 crore: ₹30,000
Over ₹5 crore to ₹10 crore: ₹40,000
Over ₹10 crore to ₹25 crore: ₹60,000
Over ₹25 crore to ₹50 crore: ₹1,00,000
Over ₹50 crore to ₹100 crore: ₹1,50,000
Over ₹100 crore to ₹250 crore: ₹2,50,000
Over ₹250 crore to ₹500 crore: ₹4,00,000
Over ₹500 crore to ₹1,000 crore: ₹7,00,000
Over ₹1,000 crore to ₹2,500 crore: ₹10,00,000
Over ₹2,500 crore: ₹12,50,000

Paid online through the payment gateway, or by NEFT or RTGS for government bodies and PSUs.

The bands above are read from the Board's own consent-fee page rather than only from the gazette scan, because that scan is four pages and its Air table stops at the fourteenth band. The two agree everywhere they overlap; the page is simply the more complete copy, which is the reverse of the usual assumption and is said here so it can be checked.

How long a consent lasts

Consent to Operate. Resolved at the Board's 224th meeting of 10 May 2019, adopting the Central Board's recommendation.

Red — large, medium or small: 5 years
Red — micro, under ₹25 lakh: 5 years, on one year's fee
Orange — large, medium or small: 10 years
Orange — micro: 10 years, on one year's fee
Green — large or medium: 15 years, on ten years' fees
Green — small: 15 years, on one year's fee
Green — micro: One-time permanent consent

The validity and the number of years' fees charged are deliberately different figures in the Board's own table; they are not a transcription slip.

Consent to Establish — EIA projects: For an EIA project, the Consent to Establish runs coterminous with the environmental clearance issued by MOEF or SEIAA.
Consent to Establish — everything else: For a non-EIA project it is five years, irrespective of category.
Asking for more time: The file is closed unless the proponent asks for an extension by letter forty-five days before expiry, giving reasons. It replaced an older structure of five years for EIA projects and three, two and two years for Red, Orange and Green.
What that rests on: Office Memorandum No. PCB/68-COC/2011-12/694 of 25 May 2011.

The other fee schedules

The same letter means different things under the two Acts, so each is named here with its Act.

Air Act, Table I(b): Infrastructure projects — integrated projects, commercial and office complexes and education institutions — charged on D.G. set KVA rating.
Air Act, Table I(c): Crushing and allied activities: stone crusher ₹25,000, M-sand ₹1,00,000, hot mix plant ₹25,000 a year. A separate DG-set consent fee runs under G.O. No. FEE 100 ECO 2000.
Water Act, Table I(b): Coffee pulping units, charged per pulper per year by type.
Water Act, Tables I(c), I(d) and I(e): Apartments, layouts, townships, complexes, institutions and local bodies, charged by sewage treatment plant capacity and by the tier of local body. Not a factory matter, named here so a reader who lands on them knows why they do not apply.

Where this meets the factory rules

Rule 3(2)(c) of the Karnataka Factories Rules requires a certificate from this Board with an application to approve a factory site, building or extension — but only for a factory engaged in hazardous processes. That is the whole of the difference between the hazardous and non-hazardous tracks of building plan approval.

Factory licence and building plan approval

Would you rather we did this?

You can ask us to take it on. A person picks the request up, prepares it and files it by hand — nothing on this site is submitted to any department automatically, and we tell you where it has got to.

What to have ready

Details of the proposed pollution control measures — ETP, STP or air pollution control — with design details
Land or premises documents: rent or lease agreement, a KIADB or KSSIDC allotment letter for an industrial area, or SEZ papers where they apply
Site, location and layout plan covering roughly a 100-metre radius
Project report giving the location, extent of land, water source, raw materials, products and by-products, water consumption, waste water generation and control measures with design parameters
Manufacturing process write-up and flow chart
Copy of the proprietorship, partnership or company deed
Layout plan marking the manufacturing area, the ETP, APC and STP, and the solid and hazardous waste storage and collection points
Hazardous waste generation, collection, storage and disposal details
For mining: the IBM-approved mining plan and the lease copy from the Department of Mines and Geology
Forest clearance, where it applies
SSI certificate, where it applies

Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, its published checklist for CFE / CFO / HWM / PWM / EWM.

Who decides: Karnataka State Pollution Control Board
How long it takes: Consent to Establish runs with the environmental clearance for an EIA project, otherwise five years. Consent to Operate runs five, ten or fifteen years by category.

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