Chief secretary
Vijay Dev has asked
Delhi Jal Board to start the process of levying environmental compensation of Rs 100-300-500 per household. In a meeting of the National Green Tribunal-appointed monitoring committee on
Yamuna, the top bureaucrat of the city government “expressed displeasure at the delay and directed the CEO DJB to pursue levy of sewage charges by following the most feasible alternative without further loss of time”.
In 2015, holding every Delhi resident responsible for polluting the Yamuna, the
NGT had ordered every household to pay a certain amount each month as environment compensation ranging between Rs 100 and Rs 500. However, not a single penny has been collected as authorities are yet to initiate the collection process.
“It was informed by the members of the monitoring committee that levy of environmental compensation (EC) under Polluters Pays Principle was a direction of National Green Tribunal for all households, irrespective of whether they lived in a sewered or unsewered area. However, the Delhi Jal Board is yet to comply with the said directions issued in 2015,” minutes of the meeting held last week states.
According to the monitoring committee, merely because subsidy for sewage treatment has been subsumed in the water subsidy cannot be a ground that households pay nothing for the treatment of sewage generation and avoid paying anything.
“This was happening even in the case of upscale colonies, which could not be the intention of the policy. Besides, DJB had reported that the Delhi government had decided to levy flat charges of Rs100/300/500 sometime in 2015 but this was not given effect to because a conduit for collection of the sewage conveyance charges was not decided,” it said.
The committee informed Dev that NGT had already been apprised of the reluctance of DJB to implement this direction, and this would become an important issue for recording non-compliance of the tribunal’s orders when the next report is sent in early May.