‘State has final decision-making power’

The state government has the final decision-making authority to allow human habitation within 500-metre radius of industrial waste storage sites that contain potential toxic material, a senior Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has said.

Environmentalists have been opposing a state government decision that allows habitations as close as 100m, and have approached both the judiciary and the ministry.

"The state government has the final decision-making power. If they have reduced the buffer zone, then the state will be the custodian of that policy. Unless they ask us for a clarification, we cannot interfere," said Saroj, a director at the ministry's Hazardous Substances Management (HSM) Division, over phone from New Delhi.

In September 2011, the government had decided against a central guideline and reduced the 500-metre buffer zone to 100m around existing Common Hazardous Waste Treatment Stabilisation Disposal Facilities and Common Effluent Treatment Plants.

Environment activist Rohit Prajapati had spotted two new apartment buildings near TSDFs in Ahmedabad's Vatva and Naroda areas in late 2010.

In response, GPCB filed a case against one of the builders. In March, an NGO filed another case against the developer in the HC.

In January 2012, the Ministry sent a letter to GPCB asking for a status of the case. In a reply sent last Saturday, the GPCB cited the lack of supporting legal framework within urban development regulations as the reason for the government bending the CPCB guidelines.

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