In a report submitted by the Central Pollution Control Board to the National Green Tribunal, the former has recommended levying environment compensation of up to ₹1 crore on various authorities including State governments for failure to implement the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) in Delhi-NCR.
The report put up for consideration before a Bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel states that for industrial activities, if the GRAP is not rolled out despite the air quality being in the “severe” and emergency category, a compensation of ₹1 crore will be imposed.
Under the “severe” category, a compensation of ₹50 lakh will be imposed while in case of GRAP violations under the “very poor” and “moderate to poor” categories, a compensation of ₹25 lakh and ₹10 lakh will be imposed respectively.
Similar environmental compensation for the various categories of air quality has been spelt out for construction sites with plot sizes more than 20,000 square metres.
On the other hand, for the dumping of solid waste and garbage dumping in industrial estates, a compensation of ₹25 lakh has been suggested for the “very poor to severe” category while ₹10 lakh will be levied for the “moderate to poor” categories.
“The implementing agencies for each activity have been identified and the environment compensation will be levied on these agencies [State government, civic bodies, etc]. These violations attract graded amounts of compensation depending on the state of ambient air quality...,” said the CPCB report.
Further, the CPCB informed the green panel that a separate report on municipal solid waste and sewage is being prepared.
“The CPCB may also include the subject of loss to ecological services due to illegal mining, deforestation or any other damage to the environment, even though the same may not be directly on account of discharge of effluents or sewage,” the Bench said.
In January 2019, the NGT had directed Chief Secretaries of all States and union territories to be present before the tribunal, on different dates, starting March 1.
Delhi CS to be present
Delhi Chief Secretary has to be present before the tribunal on March 11.
The NGT in its order dated February 19, directed the Chief Secretaries to look into the setting up of functioning of sewage treatment plants, effluent treatment plants and common effluent treatment plants before appearing before the panel.
This is in addition to the status of compliance of solid waste management rules, identification of polluted industrial clusters and amount collected from erring industries, that the officers have been asked to provide.
