Gujarat stares at over Rs 3,000 crore NGT penalty

GANDHINAGAR: After the National Green Tribunal (NGT) slapped hefty fines on the state governments of Maharashtra and West Bengal for missing deadlines for proper disposal of municipal waste, the Gujarat government has sprung into action amid fears that it too could face a fine of over Rs 3,000 crore.
Last week, the NGT imposed fines of Rs 12,000 crore on Maharashtra and Rs 3,500 on West Bengal. On Monday, a meeting was chaired by the principal secretary of the urban development department (UDD) Mukesh Kumar, which had officials of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) and other agencies to discuss this matter.

Apart from discussing compliance with NGT orders, officials of these agencies also discussed ways to strengthen infrastructure for handling municipal waste. The NGT has been reviewing implementation of Municipal Waste Handling Rules, 2016, and guidelines issued thereafter.
A key source said Maharashtra, a peer group state of Gujarat, was slapped with a penalty of Rs 300 per metric tonne (MT) for flouting solid waste management deadlines and Rs 2 crore per 1 million litres per day (MLD) of waste water that did not meet pollution standards in terms of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), dissolved oxygen (DO) and chemical oxygen demand (COD).
"At today's meeting, the pending processing of legacy waste (which has accumulated over a long period of time) at the state's eight municipal corporations and municipalities was discussed. Sources said in major cities, enhancement of wastewater treatment capacity by at least 373 MLD is needed while municipalities still cannot treat 1,150 MLD of municipal wastewater before discharge into rivers.
In the case of solid waste management, the Pirana dump site in Ahmedabad today has 79 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of unprocessed waste, for which the government will have to pay a penalty of Rs 250 crore," sources said.
The sources added that according to data provided by the UDD, Vadodara has 7 lakh MT of legacy waste, Rajkot 5.5 lakh MT and Junagadh has 3.18 lakh MT. "The situation is better in Surat and Gandhinagar. Of the legacy waste in big cities, around 51% has been processed so far. Ahmedabad has the most legacy waste," a source said.
Commenting on pending waste treatment in the municipalities of the state, sources said only 18% of legacy waste of municipalities has been processed.
"More than 61 lakh MT of legacy waste is lying unprocessed in areas under municipalities in Gujarat. Most municipalities do not have systems to process the waste, so the government has decided to provide financial assistance to them at the earliest," a source said.