India, Dec. 15 -- Nearly 45% of scientific and technical positions in pollution control boards across the country are vacant, the Union environment ministry has informed Lok Sabha.

There are 16.28% vacancies in the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Kirti Vardhan Singh, minister of state (MoS) for environment, said on December 8. Singh was responding to questions by Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) MP, Rathnavel Sachithanantham.

Sachithanantham asked whether the CPCB and state pollution control boards (SPCBs), which are our primary line of defense for environmental monitoring and enforcement, are critically crippled by a severe shortage of field-level staff, such as environmental engineers and scientists. He also asked th...