THE State government will unveil the much-awaited e-waste policy on May 13, Minister for Information Technology Poongothai Aladi Aruna conveyed the Assembly on Monday. Replying to the discussion on the demands for grants for the Information Technology Department, she said that Tamil Nadu stood first in the use of cellphone and the government would introduce m-Governance soon at an expenditure of Rs 10 lakh. The government had already selected the firm which would implement the project, she said. In the policy note for the IT department tabled by her, the Minister s aid: Chennai being a major ICT hub and with the ine dustry now ex panding to tier II and III cities and c towns and indeed into villages, it was imperative t that a compre hensive policy for Environmentally Sound Management (ESM) of e-waste be in place. The main reason why e-waste had become a global concern was the presence of toxic and hazardous substances in these equipment such as lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, barium, beryllium and brominated flame-retardants. In the absence of an effective method for collection of e-waste and managing the hazardous constituents, it was likely to be disposed off in land-fills resulting in high environmental risk and health hazards to humans and animals or end up at the backyard units which recycle such waste using highly polluting technologies, the Minister said in the policy note. Earlier, VCK MLA K Ravikumar urged the government to formulate a policy for the management of e-waste stating that otherwise it would cause harm to human health and environment. What is e-waste? Electronic waste or e-waste is any broken or unwanted electronic appliances. It includes computers, entertain ment electronics, mobile phones and other elec tronic items that have been discarded