14.1 ZONING ATLAS FOR SITING OF INDUSTRIES
A nation wide environmental planning and mapping programme for sustainable development of industries called Zoning Atlas programme was started in 1995. The pilot phase during 1995-97 covered 19 districts in 14 states. With the success of the pilot phase the programme has been extended till 2003 under the World Bank funded 'Environment Management Capacity Building Project'.

The programme has been further widened and several environmental planning activities at various levels have been taken up. The programme is receiving technical support from the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) under the project on "CPCB/SPCBs Strengthening of Environmental Quality Assessment and Control" under the Indo-German Bilateral Programme. Various other agencies including the National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO), Calcutta; National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad, (NRSA); National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur are also involved in this project.

The rapid assessment studies are called as "District-wise Zoning Atlas" Studies and the microlevel studies as "Industrial Estate Planning".

1. District - wise Zoning Atlas:
This zones and classifies the environment in a District and presents the pollution receiving potential of various sites/ zones in the District and the possible alternate sites for industries, through easy-to-read maps (1:250,000 scale). The studies will help to make decision making on site clearance transparent, faster and reliable.

Local Level
1. Industrial Estate Planning:
In continuation of the Zoning Atlas study, these studies are taken up at micro-level (1:50,000 and lower) to finally come up with sites for industrial estates, to suggest wastewater disposal points and to provide suggestions on control of surrounding land uses.

2. Environmental Management Plan for Urban Areas:
The activity is targeted to provide planning solutions for the urban areas wherein the problems are becoming more complex and the environmental risks are increasing. The activity is also intended to train the planners from the planning/development authorities of the urban areas for incorporating environmental considerations in urban planning.

The mapping and digitisation work for 39 Districts out of the 42 taken up during 1997-1999 has been completed. District wise atleast have so far been published for 12 Districts Preparation of the base for 38 districts to be covered during the year 2000-2001 has been completed by NRSA The State Pollution Control Boards were instructed to use the Atlases for issuing site clearances to the industries/development projects. The structuring of the digital data of the Zoning Atlases has been streamlined with the support from GTZ. Printing of PC Arc/Info data had been a constraint so far in publishing the Atlases. This had often caused delays in publishing the Atlases. From the Hands-on-Training in Germany conducted in June/July, 1999 for two members of the Zoning Atlas team, solutions for improving mapping quality and printing the maps had been finalised. GTZ had also subsequently produced the needed supportive software. The team at CPCB has been trained on the job. The feedback on putting the Atlases to effective use for issuing site clearances was obtained from the presentation made to the officials at MoEF from Impact Assessment Division, Control of Pollution Division and Hazardous Waste Management Division. During the current year, a Digital Atlas with CD-based query system is being prepared to make Zoning Atlas information user-friendly. Training workshops were conducted in various States for the Officials from the Government Departments (Town & Country Planning Department, Industries Department, SPCBs etc.), NGOs, industrial associations, public, media etc. The Zoning Atlas unit of CPCB participated in various seminars/conferences and exhibitions to bringing awareness on the programme. To ensure that the data inputs used for the Atlases are accurate, latest and reliable, the base maps for all the future works of Zoning Atlas (District-wise work and industrial estate planning studies) are being generated through the National Remote Sensing Agency, Hyderabad. Remote sensing techniques with three season data are being used supported by adequate ground-truthing. SPCBs had been instructed to collect the printed Atlases for sale/use by them and other concerned agencies in their State.

Industrial Estate Planning

The Industrial Estate Planning studies have been taken up in the following Districts: State District     AP East Godavari Bihar East Singhbhum Gujarat Amreli Himachal Pradesh Solan Karnataka Mysore Kerala Palakkad Madhya Pradesh Sagar Manipur Imphal Meghalaya Ri-Bhoi Orissa Undivided Cuttack Punjab Ludhiana Rajasthan Alwar  Tripura North Tripura Uttar Pradesh Bulandshahr West Bengal Bankura Work completed for the preparation of base maps, drainage and watershed maps, village maps, location maps, slope maps and environmental related maps for 9 sites. Draft report for the sites at UP, Punjab and Andhra Pradesh are ready and have been  are placed before the IA division of MoEF for the comments. Work for other sites is in progress and is targeted for completion by 2000.

Mapping of Environmentally Sensitive Zones And Industrial Sites (ESZIS) - State-Wise

The work is being done using conventional cartography through the National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation, Calcutta. The states covered in this activity and the status of work  is as follows: S.No. STATES REMARKS 1.        Bihar Published 2.        Meghalaya Published 3.        Kerala Published 4.        Goa Published 5.        A.P. Published 6.        Orissa Published 7.        Gujarat Final Printing In Progress 8.        Karnataka Final Printing In Progress 9.        Assam Final Printing In Progress 10.   J&K Final Printing In Progress 11.   M.P. Work In Progress 12.   Rajasthan Work In Progress 13.   Punjab Work In Progress 14.   U.P. Work In Progress 15.   W.B. Work In Progress 16.   Tamil Nadu Work In Progress 17.   Manipur Work In Progress 18.   Maharashtra Work In Progress