Sakina Tashrifwala
Published on: 19 September 2022 at 19:04 IST
The State of Uttar Pradesh was ordered by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday to pay Rs 120 crores as environmental compensation for poor solid waste management and sewage discharge into rivers in the Gorakhpur District.
The past and ongoing violations of the discharge of untreated sewage into drains, rivers, and other bodies of water in Gorakhpur were noted by a bench comprising Justices Adarsh Kumar Goel and Sudhir Agarwal, as well as Expert Members Prof. A Senthil Veil and Dr. Afroz Ahmad.
From the data presented by the state itself, apart from past violations, continuing violations of the discharge of untreated sewage into the drains, rivers, and other water bodies is more than 50 MLD.
“As against the reported generation of sewage in Gorakhpur to the extent of about 100 MLD, treatment is not more than 45 MLD,” it was recorded.
The Gorakhpur district’s Ramgarh Lake, Ami, Rapti, and Rohani rivers, as well as other water bodies and groundwater, have been contaminated by untreated sewage and industrial effluent discharge, according to a plea before the tribunal.
The applicant informed the court that Gorakhpur has a history of hundreds of infant deaths as a result of the Entero Virus (EV), a brain fever comparable to Japanese Encephalitis (JE), and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), which is caused by contaminated water.
Additionally, it was argued that although these illnesses occasionally prove deadly, even if the patient survives, they leave them with severe mental impairments.
She continued by saying it was regretful that, to the detriment of public health, water pollution enforcement has been and still is woefully insufficient.
The NGT decided that the state should be held accountable for a violation that resulted in a daily discharge of 55 MLD of sewage.
The tribunal stated that, “We have thus to hold the State accountable for such a violation at least to the extent of discharge of 55 MLD in violation of law. Compensation on ‘Polluter Pays’ principle has to be determined to be utilised for restoration,”
In light of this, the tribunal set the financial obligation under the “polluter pays” principle at the same amount as it did in the State of Maharashtra case—2 crore per MLD.
Furthermore, using the rate of compensation used in the instance of Maharashtra, it calculated the compensation to be Rs 10 crores for the failure to process solid waste.
In order to comply with the joint committee’s directives, it ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to deposit 120 crores in a ring-fenced account managed by the Divisional Commissioner, Gorakhpur. If the government fails to do so, additional compensation may be imposed and the joint committee may plan and implement corrective measures to achieve norms, preferably within six months.
In the last week, the NGT has severely punished state governments by levying large fines for negligent solid and liquid waste handling.
The State of Maharashtra was mandated to pay ₹120 crores last week for environmental reparations, and the Rajasthan State government was hit with a ₹3000 Crore fine on Thursday.