Water Pollution Laws and Regulations in India

Abstract

It has rightly been said by many intellectuals that the next world War will be fought over water. No wonder why many renowned environmentalists used to say that the existence of life on the planet cannot be imagined without the availability of water. However, we, by the grace of nature, have been endowed with abundance of water around us, but unfortunately, most of it is not fit for daily consumption and drinking purposes owing to an unprecedented scale of water pollution being caused by human driven industrial activities. In recent times, the creation of a toxic foam in Yamuna river water epitomizes the extent of water pollution in the capital of the country. Even the ‘Namami Gange Programme’ which is the flagship programme of the incumbent government that aims to conserve and rejuvenate the holy river Ganga by abating any kind of pollution seems to be in vain. The motive of this paper is to elaborate the statute enacted by the Parliament to curtail and mitigate the aggravated state of water pollution in the country in the light of relevant constitutional provisions and some landmark cases.   

Introduction 

In layman language, water pollution means the contamination of fresh water or a change in the physical and chemical properties of such water by the discharge of sewage and trade effluents into it.

It appears that our forefathers, on perceiving a potential threat to the wholesomeness of our aquatic resources in future, introduced the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act in 1976 which inserted Article 48A into the chapter of Directive Principles of State Policy that makes it an endeavour of the State to protect and improve the environment(which includes water as one of its components) and also Article 51A(g) into the chapter of Fundamental Duties that requires an ideal citizen to preserve and improve the natural environment, forests, wildlife, rivers and lakes. However, despite the presence of these constitutional provisions, a number of environmental activists argued that these are legally non-enforceable in nature and cannot be invoked necessarily by the judiciary to compel the State and the citizens to adhere to their commitments towards the environment. They demanded that the access to an unadulterated environment must be made as a right, justiciable under Part III of the Indian Constitution. Accordingly, it was in the prominent case of Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar and Ors.¹ in which the Apex Court held, “Right to life is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution and it includes the right of enjoyment of pollution free water and air for full enjoyment of life.”² In other words, the right to live in a clean and healthy environment is also our fundamental right enshrined under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Against the backdrop of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972 and the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP), the Indian government, in 1974, formulated the Water(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act to maintain and restore the purity of our water bodies. In addition to it, the Water(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act was passed in 1977 to provide for the imposition and collection of a tax levied on water being consumed by people in operating and carrying out certain industrial activities with an intention to supplement the resources of the Central and State Pollution Control Boards, constituted under the Water(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974. In the following section, we are going to dive deeper into the ocean of provisions of this statute of 1974 which seems to be the primary piece of legislation to combat water pollution in India.

Water(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974

Chapter V of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974 deals with the mechanism of prevention and control of water pollution.

Section 21 of this act empowers the State Board to take samples of sewage or trade effluent emanating from any plant/vessel and flowing into any stream/well for the sake of analysis. The person taking the sample :-

• shall serve on the occupier(person in charge of the plant/vessel) or his agent, a notice on the spot, informing him of his intention to have the sample so analysed.
• shall divide the sample into two portions in the immediate presence of the occupier or his agent.
• shall put each portion in a separate container which will be marked, sealed and also signed by both the occupier or his agent and the person taking the sample.
• shall send at least one container immediately to the laboratory established by the Central Board, if in case the sample was taken from a Union territory or to the laboratory set up by the State Board in any other case.
• shall send the other container, at the behest of the occupier or his agent, to the Central Water Laboratory established under section 51 of this Act, if the sample was extracted from any Union territory but in any other case, to the State Water Laboratory set up or specified under section 52 of this Act.

Section 22 of this Act contemplates that the Government analyst or the Board analyst, appointed under section 53, is required to analyse the sample and submit a detailed report in triplicate either to the Central Board or to the State Board as per the case such that a copy of it will be sent to the occupier or his agent, the other one will be preserved to be produced before the court of law if any legal proceeding is initiated against the occupier and finally the third copy will be retained by the concerned board itself.

Section 24 of this Act prevents a person from intentionally/knowingly discarding any toxic matter(which is in violation of the permissible pollutant limits as set by the State Board) into any stream or well. Similarly, this section also refrains an individual from discharging any other substance into a stream that may obstruct the flow of water of that stream, eventually leading to a considerable enhancement of pollution.

Section 25 of this Act mandates that without the prior permission of the State Board, no individual shall set up any treatment and disposal system or any operation/process/industry/plant which is most likely to release sewage or trade effluent into any well or stream or establish any new outlet for the release of sewage. However, if no consent is obtained from the State Board, then the concerned State Board may serve on the person concerned a notice levying any such conditions which it might have levied earlier on an application filed for the grant of its consent.

According to section 26 of the Water(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act of 1974, if an individual was emitting any sewage or trade effluent into any well or stream, prior to the commencement of this Act, then the provisions of section 25 will be applicable subjected to a condition that the application for the grant of consent shall be made on/before such date as the State Government may specify, in this behalf, by a notification in the Official Gazette.

Water(Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act, 1977

The aforesaid statute aims to impose and collect tax levied on water which is consumed by people in operating and carrying out certain prohibitory industrial activities such that a 25 per cent rebate on it will be given to the occupier who installs a primary treatment plant for the processing of sewage or trade effluent.

Ganga Action Plan, 1986

The Ganga Action Plan was an initiative which was launched by the Rajiv Gandhi-led-government in 1986 to improve the quality of pious Ganga River water by intercepting and altering the direction of flow of obnoxious liquid wastes and through the treatment of domestic sewage and trade effluents flowing into the Ganga River. This project envisaged the deployment of a modern and advanced technology of Up-flow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket(UASB) for the treatment of domestic and commercial sewage. In order to restore the aquatic biodiversity in the River Ganga, this plan aimed to rehabilitate the soft-shelled turtle species to alleviate Ganga pollution. The said action plan also intended to relieve the Ganga pollution by restricting the dumping of solid wastes into the River water such as unburnt dead bodies, festive immersions, agricultural runoff, faecal matters, etc. The National Ganga River Basin Authority was established under this plan by virtue of section 3 of the Environment Protection Act of 1986 with the Prime Minister as its ex-officio chairperson. The NGRBA sought to synchronize the efforts, enforce environmental rules and regulations and to ensure the proper implementation of the project on the ground zero level. Later, the year 1993 witnessed the commencement of the National River Conservation Plan(NRCP) as an extension of the Ganga Action Plan.

Judicial and Quasi-Judicial Decisions

In 2017, the National Green Tribunal(NGT) banned the pouring of any sort of solid and liquid waste materials into the Ganga River water.

In 2018, the National Green Tribunal, in a landmark case, criticised the failure of the State Pollution Control Boards to keep the pollution in check within permissible limits. The NGT further instructed all the states and union territories to frame action plans for the purpose of restoring the wholesomeness and purity of the polluted rivers to at least “bathing standards” within a time period of six months from the date of finalisation of their action plans.³

In one of the leading cases of M.C. Mehta v. Union of India⁴ (also known as the Ganga pollution case), some tanneries were releasing harmful and poisonous effluents into the holy River Ganga, thereby contaminating it with toxic pollutants. Here, the Apex Court directed the winding up of these tanneries as the effluents which were being discharged were ten times more noxious than the ordinary sewage water draining into the Ganga River water even though the court was well aware of the extent of unemployment and the adverse impact on the livelihood of a large number of people which will usher in as a consequence of the closure of such tanneries as the health, life and ecology hold immense importance in the eyes of the law.

In the Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India and Ors.⁵ landmark case, the quality of River Palar was deteriorated by the influx of certain untreated effluents emitted by some of the leather tanneries of Tamil Nadu which distorted the ecological chain, degraded the environment and posed a peril to the health and well-being of the common people. Here, the Apex Court proposed the principle of Sustainable Development to strike a perfect balance between the 2Es, i.e., economy and ecology, and evolved the Precautionary Principle as well as Polluter Pays Principle as viable features of the said concept of Sustainable Development. The polluting tanneries were held liable to deposit a fine of Rs10,000 each in the Environment Protection Fund which will subsequently be used to financially compensate the victims and to restore the ecological balance.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, it can be deduced from the above deliberation that mere enactment of stringent statutes and strict enforcement of rules and regulations are not sufficient enough to prevent the proliferation of water pollution. To bring a change, we need to first create a sense of awareness among the masses and to inculcate moral values in the minds of our young generations with respect to the importance of clean and safe drinking water as a driving force of human existence on Earth.

In our national mission against water pollution, the state governments ought to sanction a substantial amount of its capital expenditures for the development of an adequate and extensive sewage treatment infrastructure. Besides, the government must construct community toilets at regular distances and must also ensure the presence of at least an individual toilet in every single household in order to eliminate the issue of open defecation, thereby inhibiting any type of direct or indirect contamination of river water.

At last, I would like to conclude this article by requesting its readers not to be mean; keep the water clean.

 

References

[1] (1991) 1 SCC 598

[2]https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1646284/

[3]https://www.epw.in/engage/article/will-ngt-order-lead-improvement-river-water-quality

[4] (1987) 4 SCC 463

[5] (1996) 5 SCC 647