THE new Brick Making and Kiln Establishment (Control) Act 2013 is an attempt to arm mobile courts with necessary powers to tackle the growing threat of traditional brick kilns that spew out carbon damaging the environment. Indeed, with demand for bricks growing at nearly 6 per cent a year and the relaxed enforcement of the previous Act of 1989, the number of traditional kilns has spiralled to about 8,000. The new Act disallows setting up of energy wasting and carbon emitting kilns on agriculture lands and near hills. The UNDP's green brick project has been working with the government to transform the damaging kilns into complying with environmentally-friendly standards, but with only 52 such kilns in operation with plans for 150 more on the cards, it is an uphill struggle.

The problem has not been with the laws; it has always been the enforcement. Though the penalty regime along with imprisonment for setting up kilns without license or on protected areas such as hills is stricter, the question really is whether the authorities will be able to take steps against powerful business interests to check pollution. One cannot overlook the fact that it is not simply a question of setting a time limit for traditional kilns to upgrade to new environmental standards within the stipulated two years. It has much to do with regular follow up and enforcement of legal measures by the ministry of environment and forest that must be allowed to discharge its functions without hindrance. Otherwise the new Act will merely gather dust on a shelf.