India and Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are those organic compounds which are resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes as these processes make them to persist in the environment and make them capable of long-range transport, bioaccumulate in human and animal tissue, biomagnify in food chains and exert a potential significant impacts on human health and the environment.
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty which aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It was adopted in May 2003. This led to the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) and the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) workout an assessment of the 12 worst offenders which are known as the dirty dozen which included DDT, Clordane, Heptachlor etc.
In India it came into force on 13th April 2006. As a party to Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants India too had to develop National Implementation Plans (NIPs) to demonstrate how their obligations to the Convention will be implemented.
This task is being taken up in India by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), NEERI, Nagpur and NIST, Trivandrum. The task includes Inventorisation of Dioxin & Furans and also develop an Action Plan for mitigation of the same in India; as a part of the exercise on preparation of NIP for India.