Down To Earth brings you the top environmental cases heard in the Supreme Court, the high courts and the National Green Tribunal
The National Green Tribunal pulled up the Uttar Pradesh administration for failing to prevent damage to River Ganga and “wasting public money”. The bench of justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Sudhir Agarwal of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) expressed dissatisfaction with the failure of the state administration to hold erring officers accountable.
The court April 12, 2023 noted that 337,000 tonnes of legacy waste is yet to be remediated in Ballia.
NGT directed the chief secretary, Uttar Pradesh in coordination with other concerned authorities in the state to ensure remedial action, for which a special meeting of concerned officers should be convened within a month. Execution of remedial measures including fixing of responsibility of erring officers will be discussed in the meeting. In addition, an action taken report has to be filed within four months.
The NGT April 12 said that the report filed by the ACS Urban Development, UP showed almost total inaction of the state authorities "except raising huge demands of money as a pretext for avoiding basic responsibility as earlier funds had not been duly utilised nor attempt made to collect funds locally".
No accountability has been fixed for the erring officers resulting from discharge of pollution directly in Ganga. There is a daily discharge of about 20 MLD of untreated sewage in Ganga and there is no information about performance of in-situ remediation claimed at six locations in Ballia, the court noted.
Grievance in the application was against discharge of sewage and solid waste into Katahal drain connected to river Ganga in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh.
When the matter was taken up by the NGT, July 22, 2022, the court took into consideration the report filed by the joint committee comprising the National Mission for Clean Ganga, the Central Pollution Control Board, Secretary, Urban Development Department, UP, Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board and District Magistrate, Balia. The court observed that “57 KM sewerage and 5.68 KM rising mains have remained unutilized for 13 years. There is no terminal STP and sewerage is lying defunct”.
Even in the face of acknowledged violations, no proportionate action has been taken by the authorities to enforce the rule of law against illegally operating sawmills in Sikar district, Rajasthan, NGT noted April 12.
As many as 18 sawmills have been operating without the requisite consents and neither their illegal operation has been stopped nor their accountability fixed for past violations, it observed. Therefore, accountability of officers colluding with illegal activities has to be determined, the order said.
Accordingly, the court directed the constitution of a joint committee to finalise the pending action, including closing illegally operating saw mills and fixing their accountability for past violations, alongwith accountability of officers who have colluded with the illegality.
The report filed by the Rajasthan State Pollution Control Board stated that 23 sawmills are registered with the forest department. Five out of them are closed and 18 are operating. Only two have consent to operate. The process to levy environmental compensation against the 16 remaining saw mills was in process.
The assessment report by the Space Applications Centre submitted to NGT said that there is significant increase in salt pan activities inside the Little Rann of Kutch. This was a threat to wild ass habitat, migratory birds breeding ground and overall ecosystems. It was observed from satellite data that, increase in salt pans, intertidal flow obstruction, river flow blockage and chemical plant activity may lead towards ecological deterioration.
To show the increase of salt pan activities in LRK, Space Applications Centre showed images captured from google earth for two time frames (1985 and 2022). Salt pan activities increased many folds at Little Rann of Kutch near Satalpur. Intertidal flow obstructed due to increase in large scale salt pan activities near Malia.
Chemical plants are located very near to the sanctuary. River and land pollution can disturb the wild ass habitat, migratory birds breeding ground and overall ecosystems, the report uploaded to the NGT site April 13 said.
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