The National Green Tribunal has allowed Mayapuri scrap dealers to carry on metal cutting from cars and Railway materials using LPG cutters on the condition that they will have to apply for the mandatory consent from Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar made it clear that gas cutters are not be used when dealing with heavy machinery or items containing hazardous material, including used oil, and said that these conditions would be applicable to all scrap dealers in the national capital.
The bench said use of gas cutters for handling hazardous material shall be permitted if authorisation under Hazardous Wastes (Management, Handling and Trasboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, is obtained and an undertaking is given that such scrap would be handed over to the authorised dealers for its onward recycling or disposal.
The tribunal, however, warned that if the scrap dealers would deal with hazardous materials in violation of its order, it would initiate contempt of court proceedings and DPCC would be directed to launch prosecution against them.
It asked the scrap dealers to file their pleas seeking consent to establish (CTE) and consent to operate (CTO) within two weeks and ordered DPCC to expeditiously decide the same and if necessary also to inspect the effects of metal cutting activity on the environment and health of the public.
The tribunal also directed the DPCC that if it grants consent to any scrap dealer, then the permission "shall be elaborate and would prescribe definite remedies/anti pollution devices which need to be installed" and will also give due weightage to the "safety of life of workers" engaged in metal cutting using gas cutters.
NGT passed the order while disposing of the plea of Mayapuri scrap dealers who have sought modification of its May 8, 2013 order by which use of gas or electric cutters for dismantling heavy machinery was prohibited.
