Maharashtra
Prevention of Water Pollution Board was the first Board constituted
in India under the provisions of the Maharashtra Prevention of Water
Pollution Act, 1969. The role of the Board was to educate the water
polluting agencies to comply with the provisions of the Act to prevent
water pollution in the State. The Board carried out an extensive
surveys and recommended the State Government to define various river
bodies as ‘Water Pollution Prevention Area’ and covered
more & more discharges by grant of consent/s. 19 river bodies
defined as ‘Water Pollution Prevention Area’ under the
Maharashtra Prevention of Water Pollution Act, 1969. Though, the
role of the Board was to educate water polluting agencies and to
cover their discharges under consent, the Board had prosecuted 90
defaulting industries. Out of which, 35 cases compounded after securing
compliance of the consent conditions with the court’s permission.
A statement showing the status of legal action under the provisions
of the Water Prevention of Water Pollution Act, 1969 is produced
hereunder. |
The provision regarding compounding of offences with the permission
of the court, enabled the Board to secure the compliance of consent
conditions during the pendency of the above cases also. After filing
of prosecutions, the defaulting industries, which had complied with
the consent conditions, could have approached to the court with
a request to compound the offence/s. The courts in such cases had
called the verification report from the Board and based on the verification
report of compliance, allowed compounding of offences with imposing
necessary cost / compensation on the such complied industries. The
Board could have secured compliance by compounding the offences
against 35 defaulting industries against whom prosecutions had been
filed by the Board. Total 55 number of cases are decided in favour
of the Board under the provisions of the Maharashtra Prevention
of Water Pollution Act, 1969. The overall result of filing of prosecutions
under the then Act was encouraging.
Maharashtra Prevention of Water Pollution Act, 1969
was repealed on 1-7-1981 after adoption of the Central Water (Prevention
& Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, by passing resolutions in
both the Houses of State of Maharashtra. |
Maharashtra Prevention of Water Pollution Board (For the period 1970-1981)