National Green Tribunal Refuses To Shift Delhi’s Inland Container Depot On Grounds Of Causing Air Pollution

New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal has refused to order shifting of Inland Container Depot at Tughlakabad here and asked it to devise a plan so that only Delhi bound cargo is brought to it and vehicles are not parked haphazardly on the roads. A bench comprising NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice S P Wangdi asked Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) which runs the depot to submit an action-taken report on phasing out of diesel vehicles and cargo truck and shifting to electric, hybrid and CNG vehicles and arranging a dedicated parking inside the complex.

Handling procedure may be improved in the light of latest safety norms. CONCOR shall ensure the effective implementation of ‘on site’ and ‘off site’ emergency plan as mandated under Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals Rules, 2000, as amended by Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016 by way of adequate monitoring, training and supervision at regular intervals…, the bench said.

The green panel said Inland Container Depot was certainly contributing to the pollution but it is not the sole contributor and control of air pollution requires comprehensive plan.

Any piecemeal direction, for restricting a particular activity except when such activity is clearly illegal or prohibited under the planning rules may not be appropriate, it said.

The tribunal was hearing a plea filed by warehousing expert Ajay Khera claiming that non-Delhi bound operations currently being carried out at Inland Container Depot at Tughlakabad (ICD/TK) were contributing to alarming level of air pollution in the city and hence should be shifted to some other economically and environment-friendly location outside the capital.

Also Read: NGT Orders 23 States, Union Territories To Prepare Action Plans To Fight Air Pollution In Two Months

Mr. Khera had submitted in his plea that despite having a large area for parking of trailers, hundreds of trucks and container carriers are parked on the road outside ICD/TK causing traffic jams. He had also referred to a Environment Pollution Control Authority report which said that the container depot at Tughlakabad was a huge contributor to air pollution in Delhi due to movement of heavy trucks.

Earlier, CONCOR had opposed the proposal of shifting its Inland Container Depot at Tughlakabad to Dadri in Gautam Budh Nagar and said that the reason for heavy pollution in Delhi was dust and not the number of container trucks entering the city.

NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.