How to get Pollution Control Board certificate for shopping malls and housing or commercial complexes?

Introduction

Shopping malls and housing or commercial office complexes are categorized under commercial properties. Commercial property generally refers to the buildings that house businesses, but also includes land used for profit generation, as well as large residential rental properties. If a property is designated as a commercial property, then it may have various financial, taxation, and legal implications.

Types of Commercial Properties

Commercial real estate is usually categorized into 5 types:
a)    Office buildings – This includes single-tenant properties, small professional office buildings, downtown skyscrapers, and everything in between.
b)    Retail Stores/Restaurants – This includes pad sites on highway frontages, single tenant retail buildings, small neighborhood shopping centers, larger centers with grocery store anchor tenants, etc.
c)    Multifamily – This includes apartment complexes or high-rise apartment buildings.
d)    Land – This includes investment properties on undeveloped, raw, rural land having scope for future development,or , infill land with an urban area, pad sites, and more.
e)    Industrial - Warehouses, large R&D facilities, cold storage, and distribution centers are under this category.
f)    Miscellaneous – This category would include any other nonresidential properties like hotel, hospitality, medical, and self-storage developments, and many more.

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Important Registrations and Certifications for Shopping Malls, Housing/ Commercial/ Office Complexes with built up area of 20,000 sq. Meters

The important registrations and certificates required to set up shopping malls, housing/ commercial/ office complexes with built up area of 2,000 sq. Meters are as follows-

Determining the status of legal entity

A business owner must first establish a business entity as per his resources, goals, and requirements which can be any of the following:
A sole proprietorship firm if a single individual is the business owner but generally unrecommended for a set up like commercial complexes. 
A Private/Public Limited Company would be an ideal business structure for this kind of business activity as it allows the expertise and experience of other individuals to add up the overall expertise required for commercial complexes.

Pollution Control Board Certifications for shopping malls, housing/ commercial/ office complexes with built up area of 20,000 sq. Meters.

The commercial complexes do not generate air pollution or chemical effluents in water. But these entites do generate a large quantity of domestic water waste and hence a Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) is always required to be installed. Also these complexes need large wattage DG Sets for power backup and these too are required to be tested thoroughly by the Pollution Board accredite laboratory.  

Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) & Environment Clearance (EC) 

The business owner is required to first apply for Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) & Environment Clearance (EC). This is done by making an application to State Environment Impact Assessment Committee (SEIAC). Under the EIA process, widespread consultations are made with all the stake holders, including the nearby residents, to ascertain the impact this process will have on the Environment and the steps to mitigate these are suggested and installed. 

Consent to Establish (CTE)

The business owner is required to apply to the State Pollution Control Board to get the Consent to Establish (CTE) Certificate. After the CTE Certificate is received, the building, machinery etc. could be set up and installed. After this, the applicant is again required to apply online to State Pollution Control Board for the Consent to Operate (CTO). Once the CTO certificate is issued, the business is formally allowed to commence its operations. 
The procedure of determination of the category of subject matters of the businesses – 
The determination process is typically based on scores. For measuring air pollution marks will be obtained by recognizing various air pollutants and scoring accordingly out of total marks of 40 and for water pollution such scoring will be similarly out of total marks of 40 and the remaining 20 marks out of 100 is allotted for measuring hazardous waste. 
If this score of a business activity is higher than 60 then it is called as red category of business activity and so on. However, commercial properties have usually low pollution scores.
How to apply for Pollution Control Certificate
The simple steps can be followed to understand the procedure of applying for a Pollution Control Certificate:
i)    The initial application is available on the online portal of any Pollution Control Board or Pollution Control Committee. 
ii)    The applicant is required to submit the documents and submit Government fees for such applications. The fees for Consent to Establish (CTE) and Consent to Operate (CTO) under Air and Water Act largely depends on certain factors such as the type of business activity, commencement of such business, capital investment of the business and the duration of Consent to Operate (CTO) validity.
iii)    The required documents relating to the details of the industry has to be scanned and uploaded while filling the online application and, in some cases, the physical copy of such application along with those scanned documents and receipt of the fees paid has to be sent by post to the Pollution Board Office or Pollution Committee office. 
The status of a pending applications for Consent to Establish (CTE) or Consent to Operate (CTO) can be checked on the same online portal of SPCB or PCC. 

Consent to Operate (CTO)

Commercial properties usually categorized under white, orange, and green categories need to apply for consent to establish and consent to operate under the Air and Water Acts. The consent to operate/renewal shall be granted for 5 years for commercial complexes coming under the orange category.

Trademark Registration

The Trademark certificate can be acquired for which an application has to be made through the online portal of the Trademarks & Patents Office and such trademark must
be distinct and innovative. Depending on the distinctiveness, the Registrar might approve and provide the certificate of registration of a trademark for a 10 years period.

Ground Water Boring Permission 

Commercial complexes require large quantities of water and hence generate large amount of wastewater. If the business owner is using a bore well for extraction and using this water in the commercial activities or for domestic usage, it needs permission for the ground water boring being used. The permission to extract and use ground water for commercial purposes is granted by the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) in various Indian States or by the specific State Ground Water Management Authority.