Almitra H Patel v. UOI

Court: National Green Tribunal

Citation: Original Application No. 199 of 2014

Coram: Justice Swatanter Kumar (Chairperson), Justice U.D. Salvi (Judicial Member), Bikram Singh Sajwan (Expert Member), Dr. Ajay Deshpande (Expert Member)

Facts:

In this case, Mrs. Almitra Patel and others filed a PIL under Article 32 of the Constitution of India before the Apex Court, whereby the petitioner sought an immediate and urgent improvement of the practises currently adopted for the treatment of municipal solid waste or garbage in India. The Supreme Court transferred the case to the National Green Tribunal.

The Tribunal found that the severity of the issue was immense because every day over a lakh tonnes of raw garbage is dumped and there is no proper treatment of this raw garbage that is dumped on land, along highways, lakes, nalas etc.

As of 2012-2013, the entire country created over 13,3760 MT of waste every day and this rate has increased over time.

Issue:

The measures to be taken to redress the drawbacks of the current solid waste management system.

Decision:

Every state and UT were directed by the Tribunal to immediately enforce the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 and prepare an action plan within 4 weeks in terms of the Rules.

In addition, the Tribunal instructed the central government, state governments, local bodies and all citizens, without delay, to fulfil their respective obligations under the Rules.

A guideline has been released to ensure adequate segregation prior to waste production in power plants. As required, it mandated the provision of buffer zones around plants and landfills.

Absolute segregation of waste has been made compulsory for energy plants. and landfills can only be used for the deposition of inert waste and are subject to bio-stabilization within 6 months.

A complete prohibition of open burning of waste on land, including landfills, was the most important direction of the Tribunal.