Consent to Establish (CTE): the Board permission that must precede construction.

Consent to Establish (CTE) is the prior permission of the State Pollution Control Board to set up an industry, operation or process that may discharge effluent or emit air pollutants. It is granted under Section 25 of the Water Act 1974 and Section 21 of the Air Act 1981. In Maharashtra it is issued by the MPCB and must be in hand before construction or installation begins.

CTE is granted on the basis of what a unit proposes to build: capacity, effluent and emission estimates, and the pollution control systems designed for them. Consent to Operate is granted afterwards, once those systems are actually installed, and it authorises production. A unit needs both, in that order, and CTO conditions are checked against what the CTE approved.

No. Environment Clearance is granted under the EIA Notification 2006 by SEIAA or the MoEF&CC for scheduled projects above threshold. CTE is a separate Board consent under the Water and Air Acts and applies to a far wider set of units, including many that never need an EC. A project may require both; obtaining one does not substitute for the other.

The deciding level depends on the unit category and its capital investment. Smaller and less polluting proposals are decided at the regional office; larger Red category and high-investment proposals go to the Consent Appraisal Committee and the Board at head office. The slab a project falls in determines both the level of scrutiny and how the file moves.

White category activities are the least polluting under the CPCB categorisation and are generally exempted from the consent requirement, with an intimation to the Board instead. The exemption is category-specific and does not extend to any Red, Orange or Green activity carried out at the same site, so the applicable category should be settled before assuming an exemption.

Establishing without consent is an offence under the Water and Air Acts and exposes the unit to directions, closure, disconnection of water and electricity supply, and prosecution. Regularising after the fact is possible in some circumstances but is slower and more expensive than applying in sequence, and a missing CTE will surface later at CTO and in lender and buyer diligence.

A CTE is granted for a stated period within which the unit is expected to be established, and it can be extended or amended if the project timeline slips or the configuration changes. The validity granted varies with the category and the nature of the project, so it should be tracked and extended before expiry rather than allowed to lapse mid-construction.