In a significant ruling, a division bench of the High Court has directed the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests to not notify its proposal to replace the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2000 with its 2013 version.
The court issued this order as it found that the ministry's move to comprehensively amend the exist law governing municipal solid waste management and replace them with new rules promoted the "regressive" approach of collective waste without segregation at source. This, the court found "would undo what has been done in the last decade and in particular in Bangalore for the last one year in pursuance of the directions" of the court which had worked to ensure implementation of "progressive" features of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2000.
The court said, though the "definition of the word 'segregation' in 2000 Rules is retained in the 2013 Rules, they have omitted the Schedule-II itself" which details the process by which segregated waste should be handled and managed locally.
The October 24 order modifies the earlier order of October 11 and allows the ministry to "proceed to consider the objections and then prepare yet another draft rules and thereafter... place it before the court". It has directed that the ministry "shall not give effect to 2013 Rules in the light of the observations made above" and without "scrutiny" of the HC.
The segregation of solid waste was prescribed on the basis of the recommendations of the Expert Committee as well as in pursuance of the directions issued by the Supreme Court in more than one case.
At this juncture, without any reason, justification or complaint against this well established system, curiously, in the 2013 Rules, Schedule-II is deleted giving an impression that it is not obligatory any more to segregate the waste at source.
The order was issued in the PIL filed by Environment Support Group (ESG). On October 11, 2013, the court had stayed the finalisation of the Draft Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2013, when it was pointed out by ESG that it would comprehensively undermine all the progressive steps undertaken to resolve the garbage crises which the court had been monitoring for a year now.
The ESG had also highlighted that the new rules promoted by the ministry promoted a waste dumping culture and pushed for investing in the highly unsuccessful and toxic technology of incinerating garbage, at enormous public cost and damage to health and environment.
In response, Addl Solicitor General Kalyan Basavaraj submitted on October 24 to the High Court a memo that claimed that the Rules were framed in compliance with the 11th October 2011 order of the National Green Tribunal (New Delhi) in OA No. 2/2011. The HC perused the order in detail and found that the Tribunal had ordered the Ministry "...to critically review the MSW Rules, 2000 and make it more pragmatic, and workable" and not "undo what has been done in the last decade and in particular in Bangalore for the last one year", referring to the progressive initiatives to cut down costs in solid waste management and also make citizenry more responsible for the waste they generate by segregating it at source by adopting environment and health friendly methods.
