Mumbai, March 25 The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed to serious lapses in the functioning of the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), stating that it cleared 50 per cent of the consent applications received from industries beyond the stipulated 60-day period.
In its report presented in the state legislative assembly on Wednesday, the CAG said that the MPCB granted 8,273 out of 16,424 consents with delays, undermining statutory compliance and environmental oversight.
The audit report further said that 1,367 hotels and 40 industrial units were operating without the mandatory consents, even as monitoring remained constrained due to manpower shortages.
Against a requirement of 329 field officers, only 147 were in place in 2022-23, resulting in up to 68.35 per cent shortfall in inspections and as high as 84 per cent in highly polluting sectors, such as sugar, paper and pharmaceuticals.
Highlighting widespread violations, the report noted that several industries discharged untreated effluents into water bodies, operated non-functional effluent treatment plants and failed to install online monitoring systems. Effluent samples from key sectors showed parameters such as Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Suspended Solids (SS) exceeding permissible limits.
The CAG also flagged deficiencies in the functioning of Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs), stating that 5,033 out of 12,319 samples collected from 15 CETPs did not comply with prescribed standards.
It also pointed out that industries were allowed to expand in areas like Taloja (in Navi Mumbai) despite long-standing non-compliance of CETPs, in violation of National Green Tribunal directions.
On financial management, the report criticised poor enforcement of safeguards, noting that 2,678 bank guarantees worth Rs 272.47 crore were not obtained in physical form, rendering them unverifiable.
In several cases, forfeiture orders could not be executed as the guarantees had not been collected, while Rs 17.98 crore from forfeited guarantees was incorrectly credited instead of being used for environmental remediation.
The audit also flagged a short recovery of Rs 7.56 crore in consent fees and said environmental compensation of Rs 183.25 crore imposed on 339 industries remained entirely unrecovered, with notices later withdrawn without adequate justification.
The CAG recommended strengthening manpower, bringing all industries under the consent regime and enforcing compliance more stringently, particularly in highly polluting sectors.
