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The Haryana State Pollution Control Board has imposed an environmental compensation amount of Rs 2.8 crore on the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) for non-compliance with norms at the Bandhwari landfill site in Gurgaon.
A senior official of the Haryana PCB said that the penalty has been imposed mainly for violation of the Municipal Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Rules 2016. According to documents submitted before the National Green Tribunal, the environmental compensation amount has been imposed at a rate of Rs 10 lakh per month for the period from April 2020 to July 2022.
The first order imposing an environmental compensation of Rs 2.1 crore for the period from April 2020 to December 2021, was dated June 10, 2022. A second order from August this year imposed a compensation amount of Rs 70 lakh on the MCG for the period from January to July 2022.
Earlier this month, the Haryana PCB had sent a notice to the MCG, asking it to show cause as to why environmental compensation of Rs 10 lakh for August should not be imposed on it.
Compensation has been imposed based on an NGT order from February 2020, which laid down the amount to be levied for “continued failure” to comply with Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, after March 2020. Local bodies with a population of more than 10 lakh are required to pay compensation at the rate of Rs 10 lakh per month for failure to comply with the rules.
A petition in the NGT filed earlier this year had said that solid waste is being dumped from the Bandhwari landfill site into the nearby Aravalli forest and the waste and leachate have been affecting the ecosystem, where a site inspection was undertaken by a joint committee constituted by the NGT and the matter was examined.
The records imposing the penalty were submitted to the NGT as part of the joint committee’s report. The report stated that leachate was observed on a patch of forest land near the landfill and samples were collected by the PCB. Analysis of the samples found that they exceed permissible limits. While the matter was last posted for hearing on September 23, an order is awaited.
The show cause notice that was sent to the MCG before imposing environmental compensation in August stated that “repeated” show cause notices have been issued for violation of environmental rules and laws. It also states that leachate samples were collected from the forest land adjacent to the Bandhwari landfill site and the pond behind it in September 2021, and the results were found to exceed the prescribed limits.
The notice has been issued based on “such large scale non-compliance with environmental laws” and since “most of the stationary timelines have expired and directions of the Supreme Court and NGT to comply with Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 remains unexecuted and there remains a wide gap in compliance with Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 which (is) causing water and air pollution”. According to the orders, environmental clearance was granted in 2008 for setting up the solid waste treatment facility at Bandhwari for around 600 tons of waste by 2010. But according to the MCG, around 800 tons of waste was being dumped at the site in 2011, and a CPCB report in 2018 said 1,500 tons per day “is added on 4 lakh tons of legacy waste accumulated at the site”.
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