NGT imposes Rs. 3500 crore penalty on West Bengal for 'huge gaps' in solid and liquid waste management

Noting huge gaps in management of solid as well as liquid waste, the National Green Tribunal, has imposed penalty of Rs. 3500 crores on the State of West Bengal.

The Principal Bench, New Delhi has thus directed the state to deposit the same in a separate ring-fenced account within two months, to be operated as per directions of the Chief Secretary.

It has been further ordered that the compensation amount be utilised for restoration measures, including preventing discharge of untreated sewage and solid waste treatment/processing facilities, as per appropriate mechanism for planning and execution that may be evolved, within three months.

"If violations continue, liability to pay additional compensation may have to be considered. Compliance will be the responsibility of the Chief Secretary....", a bench of Chairperson Adarsh Kumar Goel, Judicial Member Sudhir Agarwal and Executive Member Prof. A. Senthil Vel has ordered.

NGT has further asked the Chief Secretary to file six monthly progress reports with a copy to the Registrar General.

This order came to be passed when the NGT took up the issues of solid as well as liquid waste management for monitoring the same as per orders of the Supreme Court.

In 2016, the issue of Solid Waste Management was disposed of by NGT requiring strict compliance of Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 by all the States/UTs making it clear that if violations continue, the State will be liable to pay compensation.

Later, when the matter was taken up to ascertain compliance status, finding that all the States/UTs were still non-compliant in the matter, fresh directions were issued for monitoring by the Tribunal, which constituted Monitoring Committees in 2018.

NGT had then ordered the State of West Bengal to take action for non-compliance by recovery of compensation and recording adverse ACRs against erring officers.

When further review was conducted in November last year, huge gaps were still found and hence, another round of interaction with Chief Secretaries was proposed.

On August 31, 2022, Chief Secretary, West Bengal presented a compliance status which as per NGT showed no meaningful progress.

"... in 125 urban local bodies, the waste generated is mentioned as 13469.19 TPD, while segregation is mentioned to be 5994.98 TPD (44.51%). Collection and transportation of waste is mentioned to be about 13372.32 TPD (99.28%) but, it is not clear what is happening to the waste so transported. Data suggests that waste collected and transported mostly remains unprocessed", NGT noted.

The Tribunal further noted that in regard to liquid waste, gap was more than 60%.

"Even though the deadline for such management under the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Paryavaran Suraksha vs. Union of India, supra, is 31.03.2018 with further direction to initiate prosecution against the concerned officers responsible for such failure, no such prosecution has been initiated...", the bench noted.

In light of such violations, the NGT has passed orders of penalty for compliance in future, and liability of the State for past violations of earlier binding orders passed.

Case Title: In re: Compliance of Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and other environmental issues