PATNA: The Bihar State Pollution Control Board issued notices to the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences- Patna (IGIMS-P) on Wednesday evening for indiscriminate burning of municipal solid waste, despite a national green tribunal (NGT) order against it.
The board has also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 each if they fail to respond within the next 15 days.
The NGT, in its order in December 2016, had prohibited the burning of waste in open places and had set a fine of Rs 25,000 for each incident of bulk burning of waste, including at landfill sites, and Rs 5,000 on anyone caught burning waste.
Acting on complaints, an inspection team of the pollution board visited the PMC's landfill site at Ramachak Bariya on Patna-Gaya Road on March 20 and found a massive fire billowing thick toxic smoke from the burning garbage for a week. The fire was extinguished on March 23.
A senior officer of the board, Nalini Mohan Singh, who inspected the site has ruled out the cause of the fire due to the emission of methane gas from unsegregated waste at the landfill site. As per his analysis, typically within less than 1 year, anaerobic conditions are established and methane-producing bacteria begin to decompose the waste and generate methane. However, the burned waste was not old.
The inspection team visited IGIMS-P on March 3 after the pollution board's public relations officer Birendra Kumar had caught a few people burning bulk waste inside the campus. “The hospital administration burned leaves, plastic waste and other materials regularly. Following the NGT order, the notices have been issued to the PMC’s municipal commissioner and the director of IGIMS-P,” Kumar told this newspaper on Thursday.
“Proposal direction for imposing a penalty of environmental compensation of Rs 25,000 on PMC and IGIMS-P in the light of the order of the NGT, principal bench, New Delhi, and Section 31 of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981,” says a part of the notice issued.
Municipal commissioner Himanshu Sharma said some mischief rag-pickers might have burned tyres to pick up iron scraps from the landfill site, which might have caused the fire. “We will submit the reply to the BSPCB and to ensure that such an incident will not happen again, the PMC will install CCTV cameras and monitor the activities of rag-pickers,” he said.