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Synopsis

Taking a serious view of the continued discharge of sewage effluent in the river Ganga, the Allahabad High Court recently came down heavily upon the State Authorities. Court said, "We all know that thousands of crores of rupees have already been spent to clean river Ganga under Namami Gange Project but with hardly any result".

Noting that the Namami Gange project is being monitored by the Director General, National Commission for Clean Ganga under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Central Government, Court asked the DG to place the details of the amount spent on cleaning river Ganga and the amount allocated and disbursed to the State of Uttar Pradesh for the purpose before the Court.

The bench of Chief Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice Manoj Kumar Gupta and Justice Ajit Kumar further asked the DG to apprise the court whether the amount disbursed to UP was spent for the purpose assigned.

Court was hearing a batch of Public Interest Litigations pertaining to river pollution in UP. 

Further, noticing the apparent lack of planning by the U.P. Jal Nigam in establishing the Sewage treatment plant (STP) across the state, Court observed that despite the fact that the functioning of the effluent treatment plants set up by different authorities in the State is being supervised by the Jal Nigam, apparently, it does not have any expert team for water treatment, especially the sewerage effluent.

" Due to lack of planning, it is evident that the STPs set up in different cities, as we see from the example at Allahabad, are not of required capacity....From the planning of the U.P. Jal Nigam, it is evident that major factor for increase and discharge in these drains has not been taken into consideration i.e, transit population in the city, which runs in crores," Court said. 

Court had earlier asked the UP Pollution Control Board, I.I.T., Kanpur, and I.I.T., B.H.U to draw samples from the STPs set up in the State which may be discharging water in the river Ganga. However, Court found that there were variations in reports filed by the UP Pollution Control Board and reports of I.I.Ts.

Moreover, Court found that the U.P. Pollution Control Board had not been taking any action against any of the persons or authorities who are violating the provisions of various statutes dealing with pollution.

Taking the same account, Court opined that "maybe, some other agency is required, having the experts, for supervising the working of STPs in the State which may properly monitor STPs".

Meanwhile, Court asked the Central Pollution Control Board to collect samples from all the concerned polluting industries and the STPs set up in the cities on the embankment of river Ganga and submit a report as to whether samples meet the prescribed standards.

The matter will be next heard on August 31, 2022. 

Case Title: Re - Ganga Pollution v. State of U.P. and others