National Green Tribunal Directs Uttarakhand To Set Apart Ring-Fenced Amount Of Rs.200 Crore For Waste Management

Recently, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed Uttarakhand to allocate Rs. 200 crore for solid and sewage management, in terms of the statement of the Chief Secretary,following the gaps found in waste management of the state.

The bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel,Justice Sudhir Agarwal, Justice Arun Kumar Tyagi, Dr.A.Senthil Vel, Dr.Afroz Ahmad said, “we accept the prayer of the Chief Secretary that instead of this Tribunal levying compensation, the Administration itself will ensure availability of Rs. 200 crores by transferring the amount in a separate ring-fenced account within one month to be operated as per directions of the Chief Secretary.”

The bench further directed that the Chief Secretary may review progress of work “at least once a month”.

The Court was hearing a suo moto application in the presence of Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand to monitor the Compliance of Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and other environmental issues with respect to the State.

The Tribunal was monitoring the issues of solid as well as liquid waste management as per orders of the Supreme Court in Almitra H. Patel vs. Union of India & Ors., with regard to solid waste management and order in Paryavaran Suraksha vs. Union of India, with regard to liquid waste management.

After considering the data submitted by the state the Court opined that, “it is seen that a gap of 59.78 MLD in generation and treatment of sewage is acknowledged which has been worked out taking the entire installed treatment capacity of 425 MLD as utilized capacity.”

The Tribunal also issued slew of directions for management of waste, including the following:

• Legacy waste at 9 sites and at other sites should be remediated without further delay and quantify remediated legacy waste indicating that no legacy waste is remaining and reported in the next compliance report.
• The issues relating to compliance of STPs with standards should be monitored.
• The Chief Secretary may immediately set up orientation programmes on a regular basis at appropriate institutional level to deal with environmental issues at district level.
• State PCB should give a report on the performance of STPs in four months.

While disposing of the matter the Tribunal stated that,”six monthly progress reports with verifiable progress may be filed by the Chief Secretary with a copy to the Registrar General of this Tribunal.”

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

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