Government Partners

The Government of Gujarat constituted the GPCB (Gujarat Pollution Control Board) on 15.10.1974 as per provisions under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, the with a view to protect the environment, prevent and control the pollution of water in the State of Gujarat, that occupies a prominent niche in progressive and industrial development of the country.  The Head Office performs activities concerning general polices and enforcement of various provisions of the Acts as well as general administration and co-ordination with other agencies.

GPCB is the key regulating and implementing agency of environmental regulation in Gujarat. The pilot Emissions Trading Scheme in Surat and proposed markets across Gujarat are being implemented by GPCB.

The Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) was constituted in the year 1975 vide Punjab Government Notification No. 6186-BR II (4) 75/24146 dated 30.07.1975, after the enactment of Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 to preserve the wholesomeness of water. Subsequently, with the enactment of other environmental laws the responsibility to implement the provisions of such laws was also entrusted to the Punjab Pollution Control Board in the State of Punjab.

The PPCB is carrying out a pilot ETS in Ludhiana, and exploring other pilot programmes in the region.

The Gujarat Pollution Control Board and Punjab Pollution Control Boards are state regulators of environmental regulations and key implementing agencies of the markets in their respective states.

  • Shri Sanjeev Kumar (IAS)

    Chairman GPCB
  • Shri. A.V. Shah

    Member Secretary, GPCB

Honorable Shri Sanjeev Kumar (IAS) is the Chairman of Gujarat Pollution Control Board and Managing Director of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited and has a wide experience of working in various Government Departments and Public Sector Undertaking.

Previously, he held various distinguished positions including being the Collector for Kheda & Gandhinagar, Addl. Secretary (Budget), Secretary (Expenditure) and Secretary (Economic Affairs) with the Government of Gujarat. He was the MD of Gujarat State Investment Limited and has also served as Director on the Board of Gujarat State Financial Services Ltd, Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation, Gujarat State Electricity Corporation, Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation, Gujarat Urban Development Company Limited, Gujarat State Transport Corporation Ltd, Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board, Diamond Research and Mercantile City Ltd, Urban Ring Development Corporation Ltd, Dholera Industrial City Development Ltd. among others.

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from I.I.T. Kharagpur and with a Master’s in Public Affairs from Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota.

V. Shah is the Member Secretary of Gujarat Pollution Control Board where he also holds the post of the Senior Environment Engineer. In his experience spanning 30 years, he has gained expertise in building and implementing waste treatment and management solutions, pollution abatement, zoning for siting of industries and e-Governance for implementation of environment legislation.

Previously, he was involved in Environment Planning for the preparation of ‘Zoning Atlas for Siting of Industries’ right from its inception. He has also played a pivotal role in conceptualizing and implementing the e-Governance project (XGN) of Gujarat Pollution Control Board earning him awards and accolades. He has represented the country at UNIDO Regional conference on POP (Persistence Organic Pollutants) management in Ship breaking industry, in Bangkok, Thailand.

His under-graduation degree in Civil Engineering was from MS University Baroda and he has a Master of Science degree in Pollution Control from Sikkim Manipal University. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. from Sankalchand Patel University.

Implementation Partners

NCDEX e-Markets Limited (NeML, Formerly NCDEX Spot Exchange-NSPOT) is the leading Indian electronic web based, online, commodities spot market and services company. It combines best features of financial markets and spot markets. Incorporated in October 18 2006, NeML is a wholly owned subsidiary of NCDEX (majority owned by LIC, NABARD, IFFCO, PNB, Canara Bank, NSE). NCDEX is India’s largest Agricultural commodity exchange with more than 90% market share.

With a national presence, the company has pioneered breakthrough initiatives like Mandi Modernization Program (MMP), e-Pledge, and e-marketing. The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) trading platform is hosted and operated by NeML.

South Gujarat Textile Processors Association (SGTPA) is an association of Textile Processing units of South Gujarat – mainly in and around Surat Area. There are around 400 processing units in this area. SGTPA addresses common concerns of these units and take care of presentations and representations on their behalf to several Ministries, Government Departments, Semi Government Institutions and Private Companies. SGTPA is a common platform for all the processing units of this area for constructive interaction and mutually beneficial policy making.

Majority of industries in the Surat pilot come under SGTPA, and therefore a critical stakeholder in the implementation of the scheme.

The Clean Air Markets involve several stakeholders such as a data and trading partner, industrial association, vendors, accredited laboratories, among others who have facilitated the implementation of the programmes.

Research Partners

In 2014, the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago launched EPIC-India to help India tackle energy and environmental challenges head-on through crossdisciplinary, innovative research and partnerships with government, industry, research institutes and other stakeholders. EPICs work in India covers a broad range of areas including electricity and energy markets, energy modelling and the design of economically efficient regulatory mechanisms to reduce air and water pollution.

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) was founded by Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo in June 2003 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. Anchored by a network of 193 affiliated professors from 56 leading universities around the world, J-PAL conducts randomised impact evaluations to answer critical questions in the fight against poverty.

Founded in 1961, the Economic Growth Centre (EGC) was intended as the first research centre in a major US university focused on the quantitative study of lower income economies. Today, the EGC is the home at Yale for economic research on global development and poverty reduction. EGC’s research focuses on applying rigorous methods to understand not only the links between economic growth and poverty, but also how rising inequality and a changing climate affect individual wellbeing, especially among marginalized groups in developing countries.

The Clean Air Markets are  being carried out with the help of a team of researchers who are evaluating the programmes’ benefits and costs.
  • Anant Sudarshan

    Executive Director-South Asia; EPIC
  • Michael Greenstone

    Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics; Director, EPIC; Director, BFI
  • Nicholas Ryan

    Assistant Professor of Economics, Yale University
  • Rohini Pande

    Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics; Director, Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Anant Sudarshan is the Executive Director (South Asia) for EPIC. He is also a Senior Research Associate at the Department of Economics, University of Chicago. Prior to working at EPIC, Anant was the Giorgio Ruffolo Post-doctoral Fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He received his PhD in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and he holds undergraduate and masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) and Stanford University respectively.

Anant works at the intersection of environmental economics and engineering, with on-going research on a variety of areas including environmental regulation, air-pollution, climate change, energy efficiency, electricity and renewable energy. His present work includes collaboration with India’s Ministry for Environment and Forests to design and evaluate a pilot emissions trading program to regulate industrial air pollution. He is also working with the Government of Bihar on electricity distribution reforms designed to reduce losses and enhance the supply of power.

Michael Greenstone is the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, the College and the Harris School, as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. Greenstone also directed The Hamilton Project, which studies policies to promote economic growth, and has since joined its Advisory Council. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Before coming to the University of Chicago, Greenstone was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT.

Greenstone’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is largely focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work is particularly focused on testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations around the world. Additionally, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change as a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab. He also created the Air Quality Life Index that provides a measure of the gain in life expectancy communities would experience if their particulates air pollution concentrations are brought into compliance with global or national standards.

Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

Nicholas Ryan studies energy markets and environmental regulation in developing countries. Energy use enables high standards of living but rapid, energy-intensive growth has caused many environmental problems in turn. Nick’s research measures how energy use and pollution emissions respond to regulation and market incentives. His work includes empirical studies of the effect of power grid capacity on electricity prices, how firms make decisions about energy-efficiency and how environmental regulation can be designed to best abate pollution at low social cost.

Nick is joining Yale University as a Cowles Foundation Fellow for 2014-15 and an Assistant Professor of Economics from 2015 onwards. He has been a Prize Fellow in Economics at Harvard University from 2012-2014. He received a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012 and a BA in Economics summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. He previously worked as a Research Associate in the Capital Markets group at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC.

Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center, Yale University. She is a co-editor of American Economic Review: Insights.

Pande’s research is largely focused on how formal and informal institutions shape power relationships and patterns of economic and political advantage in society, particularly in developing countries. She is interested the role of public policy in providing the poor and disadvantaged political and economic power, and how notions of economic justice and human rights can help justify and enable such change.

Her most recent work focuses on testing innovative ways to make the state more accountable to its citizens, such as strengthening women’s economic and political opportunities, ensuring that environmental regulations reduce harmful emissions, and providing citizens effective means to voice their demand for state services.

In 2018, Pande received the Carolyn Bell Shaw Award from the American Economic Association for promoting the success of women in the economics profession. She is the co-chair of the Political Economy and Government Group at Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a Board member of Bureau of Research on Economic Development (BREAD) and a former co-editor of The Review of Economics and Statistics. Before coming to Yale, Pande was the Rafik Harriri Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, where she co-founded Evidence for Policy Design.

Pande received a PhD in economics from London School of Economics, a BA/MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and a BA in Economics from Delhi University.

Research and Implementation Staff