Hefty fines for green violations

A stringent law on civil penalties providing for hefty fine and jail term is being framed by the environment ministry to deal with offenders of green norms, in sync with its policy of making compliance easy but violations costly.

Giving details of the proposed law, environment minister Prakash Javadekar said besides covering industries and other private entities, it will have provision to impose heavy penalties on government agencies, local bodies and state-run institutions.

Within the next two weeks, he said inter-ministerial consultations on the draft law will be over following which it will be placed before the Cabinet for approval.

The main objective of bringing the legislation is to ensure strict enforcement of various environmental norms so that it can be protected effectively. The measure will help deal with the challenge of pollution and waste management, he said, adding the government wants to bring the law as soon as possible.

“The real problem is compliance. In our country, there are many laws and hundreds of rules but compliance is very weak. We must make compliance easy and violation very costly. On that principle, we have drafted the law on civil penalties which will act as deterrent as it will have provisions for heavy penalty against violators,” Mr Javadekar told PTI in an interview.

The environment minister said the new draft law will provide for both financial penalties and jail term for the violators.

“There will be financial penalties and provisions of jail. Earlier laws also had such provisions but they were very weak. We are revising them as per current situation,” he said.

Mr Javadekar said his ministry has recently come out with six new waste management rules, including solid waste management norms.

“When we drafted new waste management rules, local bodies are expected to take lead and do it. Whichever local bodies or industries do not comply with that, they will be (penalised),” he said.

The minister said the government was majorly focusing on containing pollution and dealing with the problem of increasing volume of solid waste.

“For common man, we have revamped six waste management rules. So we are addressing the clean India part as well as making everybody accountable at the same time.

“Large generators (of waste) must segregate, they will have to recycle. Local bodies are duty bound to take action holistically. We have built an institutional mechanism,” Mr Javadekar said.