NEW DELHI: Lack of effective pollution laws are crippling cities. With eight people dying every day of air pollution in Delhi, authorities have no comprehensive data of places having polluted air, contaminated drinking water and land due to untreated municipal solid waste, industrial effluents, garbage dumps and tonnes of strewn plastic waste.
Unavailability of proper management practices of contaminated sites is posing a major risk to health of millions of people across major cities. According to the World Health Organisation, India has 10 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities.
A Central Government report to review rules dealing with polluted sites has found major loopholes—from no list of polluted sites with the authorities, 40 percent vacancies in enforcing staff, lack of institutional capacity, to no involvement of other concerned ministries and civil society to tackle the problem.
The report, commissioned by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, provides a review of the systems and practices of management of polluted sites. The review was also based on interaction with government agencies, civil society groups and industry associations, among others.
The Environment ministry reviewed some key Acts, rules and state laws dealing with environment. The central laws included the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, the National Green Tribunal Act 2010, the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981, the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act 2010, the Land Acquisition Act 1894 amended in 1984, and the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980, and the Indian Forest Act 1927.
With India generating 62 million tonnes of waste annually—it is expected to reach 450 million tonnes by 2050—the report finds that there is no formal procedure of listing of the polluted sites as and when complaints are received.
A draft definition of “contaminated” and “probably contaminated” site is still being worked upon that may serve as the basis of identification of a probably contaminated/contaminated site. “There is no legal authority on any institution to be the custodian of the list of all contaminated sites, screen it and declare a site as probably contaminated,” highlights the report.
What is more worrying is that the current enforcing agencies—Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs)—lack in institutional capacity. Most SPCBs do not have NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) certifications for the parameters to be monitored by their laboratories.
“All SPCB regional offices do not have laboratories, all SPCBs have about 35-40 percent vacant seats under different technical and scientific posts. Firms to which the work is currently being tendered out are mostly international,” it further said.
After an incident like massive fire at Mumbai’s Deonar last year, there is no obligation under the law on entities abandoning a site or changing land use of a site to conduct preliminary assessment and report to the managing entity.