Only one polluter prosecuted in Mumbai under Air Act since 2015

This data came to light via an RTI request by Girgaum resident Jeetendra Ghadge, who has raised several complaints with the MPCB regarding increasing air pollution in South Mumbai, due to rampant construction, including that caused by the BMC’s Coastal Road project and MMRCL’s Mumbai Metro.

Mumbai: Despite worsening air quality in the city in recent years, the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) in Mumbai has initiated legal action against just one violator -- under the provisions of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 -- since 2015. The MPCB did not share specific details of the violation or ensuing court proceedings, despite requests.

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This data came to light via an RTI request by Girgaum resident Jeetendra Ghadge, who has raised several complaints with the MPCB regarding increasing air pollution in South Mumbai, due to rampant construction, including that caused by the BMC’s Coastal Road project and MMRCL’s Mumbai Metro. “In Mumbai, where citizens every day are raising their voice before various authorities over egregious pollution levels, it is shocking that just one polluter has been taken to court in seven years,” Ghadge said.

To be sure, this statistic does not reflect the number of show cause notices and closure directions issued to various polluters in the same time frame, but it indicates how political and administrative will to implement the Air Act in full has completely fizzled out. Experts, including a former member secretary of the MPCB who spoke to Hindustan Times on condition of anonymity, resolutely agreed.

“The Air Act empowers the MPCB to take action against any violator, be it an industrial operator, a construction site, an urban local body, someone burning waste by the side of the road, or anyone else,” he said. “The BMC and the district collector can also take action under laws such as the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act or the Criminal Procedure Code. But these actions are limited in scope from an environmental standpoint.”

The former MPCB member averred that it was the MPCB’s legal responsibility to make sure that polluting activities were curbed and that the polluters were taken to task. “If they intervene, as they are empowered to, action by the BMC or collector will be infructuous,” he said. “But speaking from experience, I can tell you that this will not happen. The political ramifications of the MPCB sending a legal notice to the BMC or the MMRCL are huge, so you can see why.”

A closer look at MPCB’s annual reports since 2002-03 show that the Board has been extremely reluctant to take air polluters to court for violations for the last two decades. It had initiated “147 cases under the provisions of the Air Act in various courts of law” up to March 2003, which rose to just 149 cases at the end of March 2015. For reasons that officials were unable to explain, the MPCB’s will to prosecute polluters under this Act, which is the foremost piece of legislation to curb air pollution in the country, seems to have died a sudden death after 2003.

HT met the MPCB’s joint director of air quality, V M Motghare, at his office on Monday, but repeated requests for a detailed comment were turned down. “I do not know anything about this,” Motghare said, refusing to speak. Praveen Darade, member secretary, MPCB, also did not respond to HT’s requests for comment while Sudhir Srivastava, who served as the MPCB’s chairman between 2018 and 2021, also declined to speak.

An official in MPCB’s law office, however, took the trouble to explain in more detail. “First we issue a show cause notice to the violator, then give them a chance to correct their behaviour,” he said. “In case of serious violations, we issue closure notices and revoke their Consent to Operate. They are allowed to resume operations only after some conditional directions are complied with. There is a long process before any legal action is taken, and it helps us to keep violators in check without taking them to court.”

This stand has not managed to convince environmentalists. “This is a laughable position to take,” said Debi Goenka, executive trustee, Conservation Action Trust (CAT). “Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday apologised to Mumbaikars for the inconvenience they are facing due to pollution from infra projects. The lack of any legal consequences for polluters begs the question as to what kind of discussions MPCB is having with polluters, be they government agencies, refineries, industrial units or developers. Clearly, these parties are finding it cheaper to pollute than comply with the Air Act, which exists purely in the realm of theory, not action.”