Pollution charges
In the prevailing system, the SPCBs do not levy any pollution charges as the ‘polluter pays principle’ prevails and the polluting industries are supposed to treat their pollution as per prescribed standards. The SPCBs have to generate their own financial resources. The fee charged by the SPCB for grant of the CTE or CTO is considered as an administrative fee for processing the application and is the main financial resource for the regulator. Earlier water cess used to be a financial resource for the SPCBs too but since its replacement by GST4 (Goods and Service Tax) in 2017, this resource is no longer available. In Gujarat, the state government has not given a grant to the SPCB in the last three years (Bansal, 2017), in spite of the fact that it is an industrially developed state and is facing multiple environmental challenges. In fact, even before this, the grant used to be very modest. The fee paid to the SPCB for CTE is based on the proposed investment in the unit and not on the pollution potential. For an application for the CTO under the Water Act, the fee is levied by the SPCB based on the water consumption by the industrial unit. The fee does not consider the volume of wastewater generation. The fee is also not differentiated based on geographical region, viz., the fee is the same whether a unit is located in a waterscarce region or in a critically polluted region or in a region with less pollution. Another discrepancy is that the fee is not adjusted in the context of inflation and is not often revised, which puts a constraint on the financial resources of the regulator.
As far as fines are concerned, the current provisions in the Water Act do not empower the SPCBs to impose a fine directly on the non-complying industries. The fines can be levied only through the courts if the unit is found guilty of non-compliance. These fines are very low (maximum of Rs. 10000) under the Water Act and have not been revised since the enactment of the Act in 1974, and, thus, do not function as a deterrent to control pollution. There are many examples in other countries where fines are proportionate to the intensity of pollution. For example, in a water pollution case in Malaysia, fines have been ten times the prescribed charge if the norms have been exceeded by the polluter. Another example is that of water pollution in Poland, where the charges are differentiated by geographical regions and by type of industry, and fines are levied if the regulated firm discharges pollution in excess of the levels specified in the permit (Kathuria, 2006).
