Environment ministry puts waste onus on states

In a bid to regulate use of imported hazardous waste, the environment ministry has made state pollution control boards nodal offices ensure that the waste is recycled in an environment-friendly manner.

Updated on: Apr 5, 2010, 23:07:13 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

In a bid to regulate use of imported hazardous waste, the environment ministry has made state pollution control boards nodal offices ensure that the waste is recycled in an environment-friendly manner.

India is the world’s biggest importer of waste from the West but most of it is said to be unregulated. There have been reports of imported waste landing up in municipal landfill sites in India.

Till now the import of hazardous waste was allowed after the environment ministry permitted it. But the ministry has decided to delegate its power to the state pollution control boards after it found monitoring to be an tall task in absence of wherewithal at the ground level.

“All traders will have to register with the state pollution control,” a notification issued by the ministry under the hazardous waste rules said.

The new guidelines notified under Hazardous Wastes (Handling and Transboundary movement) Rules state that before giving permission the pollution boards would have to ensure that the trader has facilities to safely store the imported waste. “They will also have to monitor the use of imported waste by recycling units,” a ministry official said.

“Decentralisation is good,” said Ravi Aggarwal of NGO Toxic Link. “But, my concern is the capacity of the state pollution boards to implement the new rules. At present, they don’t have capacity to enforce their new responsibility.”

What worries environmentalists is a provision in the rules, which allows automatic permission to the trader to import waste, if the pollution boards fail to take a decision on the application within 30 days. “This provision can be misused because of the poor manpower in the state pollution control boards,” Aggarwal said. The new guidelines are being seen as the ministry readying itself for functioning of the National Environment Protection Agency at the national level and its counterpart in the states.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.