Foreword
The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 provides for a consent system by which control of pollution at the sources of emanation prior to discharge into the environment can by administratively effected. The consent is a statutory document permitting discharge from a source stipulating primarily conditions of quality, quantity and location of discharge. The Central Board for the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution addressed itself to the task of evolving the conditions of quality of discharge for one of the two main sources of wastewater: (i) of the in- dustries, and (ii) of domestic origin. At the outset it became apparant that the condi- tions of quality of discharge, commonly referred as effluent standards, have to be tailored specific to each type of industry. It also became apparantthat information on the status of each type of industry in the -country in respect of number of units, their locations, capacity, type of product, processes adopted, raw materials used and wastewater treatment presently adopted, was not readily

available to the Water Pollution Control Boards created under the Act. Inplant control measures as a means of control of pollutant generation were also considered of significant im- portance.

Against the above background it was decided to prepare Comprehensive Industry Document on each type of industry touching upon the different aspects as narrated above. The primary objective of the document is to evolve standards for wastewater discharge and obviously the standards developed can only be non-specific to loca- tion. Techno-economic aspects of treatment formed the important component of the development procedure. The standard thus developed is termed Minimal National Standards (MINAS) and each unit of the type is required to conform to the Standards regardless of location. The State Boards have agreed not to relax the Standards but to tighten the same if location so warranted.

The present document is the second in the series of Comprehensive Industry Documents (COINDS) and deals with Oil Refineries. Considerable information was collected from the refineries and their co-operation is gratefully acknowledged. The document was prepared by M/s. Universal Enviroscience Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi. Dr. K.R. Ranganathan, Environmental Engineer, coordinated the activities in preparing the document.

The document should be useful to the industry, the regulatory agencies, the con- sultants and to all interested in pollution control.