The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has warned that local bodies will be liable to pay a compensation of ₹10 lakh per month for a population of above 10 lakh if there was continued failure to treat generated waste.
A Bench headed by NGT chief Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel also directed that an ‘environment monitoring cell’ has to be set in the offices of Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories.
While observing that there was a huge gap in the amount of waste generated and treated, the Bench said, “Current processing of waste generated and collected is also not taking place on a regular basis. For any person travelling by train, hot spots of scattered garbage and overflowing sewage are common sights.”
Fix accountability
“Satisfactory sewage management also remains a far cry. This unsatisfactory state of affairs must be remedied at the earliest and in a time-bound manner by initiative at the highest level. Accountability needs to be fixed and consequences for failure clearly provided and enforced,” the Bench said.
The green panel also specified that financial burden may be shared with the State governments in case the local bodies are unable to bear the costs for remedial action.
“Apart from compensation, adverse entries must be made in annual confidential reports of CEO of the said local bodies and other senior functionaries in department of urban development, etc. who are responsible for compliance of orders of this Tribunal,” the Bench added.
The Chief Secretaries of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Chandigarh were also directed to be present before the Tribunal on August 24.
