CEE Oct-Dec 2012

WHY NOT LEVY GRErN TAX ON NEW DIESEL CAJitS IN DELHI' DO NOT PERMIT INDUSTRIES F EFFLUENT NORMS NOT lBEYED COURT TELLS The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the government on a plea, seeking to impose environment compensation charge of 25 percent on sale of new diesel cars in NCR TAT~ The Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation {MIDC) not to permit manufacturing units within 750 metres of a river from September 1, if existing facilities are not mai ntained for discharge of effluents. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the central government on a plea seeking to impose environment compensation charge of 25 percent of the sale value on new private diesel cars in the National Capital Region (NCR). Besides this, the plea by amicus curiae Harish Salve has sought the levying of environment compensation charge respectively of 2 percent and 4 percent of the purchase value of all the existing petrol and diesel cars. The apex court's forest bench of Justice Aftab Alam, Justice KS Radhakrishnan and Justice Swatanter Kumar issued the notice and asked the government to respond within four weeks. The plea sought direction that an 'environment compensation charge of 25 percent of the sale value of new vehicle is levied on the sale of each private diesel car to be collected by the dealers at the time of the sale'. Besides this one-time environment compensation charge, the application sought 'environment compensation charge amounting to 2 percent of the purchase value of a patrol car and 4 percent of the purchase value of diesel car be levied on all existing private cars in the NCR region to be collected annually by the insurance companies along with the premium amount'. Amicus curiae Salve said that the court should direct that insurance companies should ensure that the vehicles had a valid pollution under control certificate at the time of the renewal of insurance. {http:llnews.in.msn.com/national] Under the rules, facilities such as pipelines or Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) are required to be maintained to achieve the stipulated discharge standards. The directive was given by the Chief Justice, Mr. Mohit Shah, and Mr. Justice Nitin Jamdar who also asked the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) to constitute, within a month, a committee for five MIDC estates in the State to monitor functioning of CETPs and for industrial units within the MIDC areas. The Bench was hearing a PIL filed by Mr. Nicholas Almeida who sought action against polluting units in the State. The industrial estates whose reports were tabled in the Court about effluents being discharged into CETPs are Lote Parshuram Environment Protection Cooperative Society (Ratnagiri), Greenfield CETP Plant (MIDC Chincholi Solapur), Badlapur CETP Association (MIDC Badlapur), Chikhloli-Morivali Effluent Treatment (MIDC Ambarnath) and Tarapu r Environment Protection Society CETP. Perusing the reports, the Judges observed, "It appears that the CETPs are not in a position to comply with the statutory norms." The Court also directed the associations running CETPs to inform the State Pollution Control Board (MPCB) about the highly polluting industries. Besides, MPCB has also been asked to inform the associations running CETPs about such action being taken. For instance, if directions for closure are issued by MPCB to the highly polluting industries, a copy of all such directions shall also be served on the associations running CETP, so that the association concerned can monitor compliance, the Judges noted. The further asked the associations to send particulars about the highly polluting industries to the MPCB within four weeks. 42 \ •