3 min readMumbaiUpdated: Mar 26, 2026 01:32 AM IST
In an audit report tabled on the last day of the ongoing Maharashtra assembly session on Wednesday, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has flagged several discrepancies pertaining to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB).
The report covered audits into expenditures and performances incurred by government departments like environment, science and technology, health and welfare, agriculture, water resources, urban development and general administration between 2017 and 2023.
A primary lapse flagged by the CAG was a failure to recover environmental compensation amounting to Rs 183 crore from 339 defaulting industries. Environmental compensation or EC is a principle amount that is paid by a party responsible for affecting the environment and social costs resulting from their pollution as a means to bear the cost to clean up and mitigate its impact.
“On the recommendation of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had issued instructions for levying EC on industrial units for reasons such as violation of consent conditions, non adherence to action plan, accidental or intentional discharges resulting in damage to the environment,” the CAG report stated.
The report also mentioned that the pollution board identified 339 industries on the basis of field visits, and issued directions levying a total compensation of Rs 183.25 crore. However, the report mentions that no compensation was recovered from the defaulters even after a lapse of two and half years of issuing notices.
“The notices issued to the defaulting industries were withdrawn by the MPCB without any reason and the industries were let off without recovering the EC despite polluting the environment,” the report stated.
The report stated that as per a Government Resolution, the MPCB is supposed to carry out risk based inspection of industries within a frequency of one month to a year, depending on the industry type. For example, in highly polluting industries like chemical or oil, inspections are to be carried out once a month. For small scale industries like hotels and eateries, inspections are to be carried out annually.
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The report showed that in 2017 and 2023, there was a shortfall of 53.5 percent and 68.35 percent site inspections respectively.
For the seven year period, of the 1.88 lakh inspection visits scheduled, 74,163 were actually carried out which accounts to only 39 per cent. The report flagged that MPCB has inadequate manpower. According to records, the sanctioned strength for field officers stands at 204, while between 2017 and 2023, the maximum number of filled post stood at 168 in 2017, which further declined to 147 in 2023, with several officers retiring or being transferred.
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