ABSTRACT
The 1857 act established penalties for water pollution in the case of gas leaks. Clause 15 addresses water pollution and Clause 16 air pollution. The Oriental Gas Company was founded four years earlier, in 1853, to provide coal gas for street lighting in the expanding city of Calcutta. The smoke from the lights contributed to urban smog and waste from the gas factories producing the fuel became a major source of river pollution. Gas companies in British cities had been established in 1816 with a requirement to act on public concerns about pollution. In the wake of the Gas Act, further anti-pollution legislation came to be introduced in India by the British, again essentially following the enactment of similar acts in the "home country". Power to break up streets, etc., under superintendence, and to open drains.
