The Hindu | Bangalore | MARCH 09, 2018 20:34 IST
This is for illegal dumping and non-compliance of orders
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Friday came down heavily on the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for dumping waste in a vacant quarry and imposed a environmental compensation of Rs. 10 lakh.
A bench headed by judicial member Jawad Rahim rapped the civic body for not complying with previous orders pertaining to bio-mining at quarry sites and summoned the commissioner of the BBMP.
The green panel further rapped the counsel appearing for the BBMP after he submitted that an expert committee had suggested alternatives to bio-mining.
“If anything was wrong with the previous order, you should have approached us. You cannot circumvent our orders. This report contains your own opinions and all that we wanted was compliance,” said the bench.
Directing the commissioner of the BBMP to be present before the tribunal, the bench said, “The commissioner shall be present while filing the compliance report within two weeks. The Karnataka pollution control board is directed to inspect the sites in question.”
The tribunal further asked the BBMP to deposit the fine within two weeks, 25% of which had to be handed over to the Central Pollution Control Board and the remaining to the State pollution control board.
The directions came while the tribunal was hearing a plea filed by a group of petitioners who alleged that the civic body was dumping municipal waste in an abandoned quarry in Bagalur village.
“The action of the respondents in dumping the solid waste in the Bagalur Grama Panchayat limits is grossly illegal and arbitrary and constitutes an abuse of environment. It poses a serious threat to life and livelihood of the people of the area, including the petitioners and their families. The dumping has commenced in pursuance of the order of the government of Karnataka and the BBMP without obtaining approvals or authorisation from various authorities,” the plea alleged.
The green panel had, on January 17 directed that ‘no dumping’ shall be carried out at the quarry site concerned. “Time-bound action plan with a timeline for starting bio-mining at all the quarry sites shall be placed before the tribunal,” the bench had said.
