Anti-pollution body seeks nod to prosecute MCG for flouting rules at Bandhwari yard

According to HSPCB’s regional officer in Gurugram, Kuldeep Singh, they have approached the watchdog’s chairperson Ashok Kheterpal for permission.

The Haryana state pollution control board (HSPCB) said it is preparing to initiate legal proceedings against the municipal corporation of Gurugram (MCG) and its concessionaire for pollution at the Bandhwari landfill.

A general view of the Bandhwari landfill in Gurugram, India. (Yogendra Kumar/HT PHOTO)

According to HSPCB’s regional officer in Gurugram, Kuldeep Singh, they have approached the watchdog’s chairperson Ashok Kheterpal for permission.

“We plan to prosecute the municipal corporation and Ecogreen Energy (the present concessionaire who is supposed manage the landfill). We will initiate legal action in the Faridabad environment court once we receive approval,” he said, adding that the HSPCB has taken cognizance of violations under the Air Act, Water Act and the MoEFCC’s Solid Waste Management Rules (2016) by both parties.

Over 40-foot high, the landfill towers above the mesquite forests and surrounding Aravalli hills.Years of leachate contamination from this site has irreversibly polluted the water table in the Aravallis, which serves as the primary aquifer for Delhi, Gurugram and Faridabad, according to a 2017 report by the Wildlife Institute of India.

HSPCB officials also clarified that they would be prosecuting the original concessionaire of the landfill site, who ran a waste management plant in Bandhwari till 2013, before a fire broke out and left it non-operational. “They are also liable as the legacy waste began piling up at the site due their failure of segregating and treating the material,” Singh said. Even before the fire incident, the original concessionaire had faced issues in successfully treating the entire volume of waste being received by the plant.

A senior HSPCB official, requesting anonymity, added, “There is a major issue of legacy waste at the site, which was turned into a dumping ground without prior permission from the pollution control board. Permission is required under the Solid Waste Management Rules.” The upcoming waste-to-energy (WTE) plant will still take some time to come up and may be useful for future waste, but meanwhile, past violations have to be accounted for, officials added.

Activists say the move is long overdue, and that legal action should have been taken against the MCG several years ago. “At this point, it is too little too late. If the HSPCB had acted when the violations first began, perhaps they would have been able to curb the unlawful dumping and subsequent harm to the environment and locals,” said activist Vivek Kamboj, who took the matter to the NGT in 2015.

Singh responded by saying that he could not comment on the HSPCB’s activities between 2013 and present day. “Since I have been posted in Gurugram, the matter has been under consideration,” he said.

Rajesh Kurup, COO, Ecogreen Energy, said, “I am not aware of any such development.” Kurup said he would issue a detailed statement later in the day, but did not respond to follow up calls and messages.

Despite multiple attempts, MCG deputy commissioner Amit Khatri and HSPCB chairperson Kheterpal could not be reached for comment .