NGT directs MPCB to respond to plea for publishing names of allegedly polluting industries online | Photo: Representative Image
Mumbai: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to file a reply affidavit to an application that seeks the publication of names of industries allegedly involved in environmental damage. The application emphasizes that such publication would ensure transparency and accountability among the alleged violators.
The Tribunal further directed the applicant to identify the industries allegedly involved in polluting the environment and implead them in the case. It also instructed the registry to issue notices to the respective industries.
“The applicant’s prayer states that a mandate be issued requiring the list of non-complying industries and those exempted from Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) norms to be published online to ensure transparency and accountability. As regards non-compliance by several highly polluting industries, we direct the applicant to identify such industries and implead them, so that notices can be issued. For this purpose, the learned counsel for the applicant has sought time until the last week of June,” reads the order copy.
The application, filed by Vishal Rajemahadik, seeks directions for the Central and Maharashtra Pollution Control Boards to ensure that compliance data for all 17 categories of polluting industries— including real-time parameters and uptime records— is made publicly available online. The application also requests that the list of non-complying and ZLD-exempted industries be published to promote transparency and accountability.
“It is submitted that the applicant is seeking the Tribunal’s intervention regarding the ineffective implementation of the online environmental monitoring system for highly polluting industries. The lack of enforcement based on real-time pollution data, significant monitoring gaps, and the absence of publicly accessible compliance data render the entire online monitoring scheme infructuous,” the applicant stated in his plea.
However, the NGT noted that after reviewing the evidence, it appeared the applicant was seeking a directive to the CPCB and MPCB to ensure public access to real-time compliance data for 17 categories of polluting industries.
“We checked the CPCB’s website ourselves and found that the information is already available under the section titled ‘Online PCEaNs PCB.in.’ It appears from the website that data provided by industries has been uploaded. However, industries that have not submitted data are not listed. Thus, it is possible that several industries have failed to provide their data,” the Tribunal observed.
The Tribunal added that since the applicant did not identify these non-compliant industries in the original application, it cannot pass any order against those whose details have already been published online in accordance with the compliance guidelines.
