Pollution Near Your Home or Village: How to Make It Stop

If a factory, crusher, kiln, generator, dump or drain is fouling the air or water near your home, you do not need a crowd, a lawyer or a court case to start. One written complaint to the right authority, backed by dated photos, a log of timings and a diary number, is enough to set the law moving. The State Pollution Control Board (DPCC in Delhi) deals with smoke, dust and effluent. The development authority or municipal body deals with land use. The SDM can order a public nuisance removed. If they all sit on it, the National Green Tribunal can direct them to act.

This guide answers the four questions residents and villagers ask us most, in the order they usually come up: a factory in a residential area, a particular polluting unit such as a rice mill or stone crusher, everyday problems like construction dust, garbage burning and open drains, and what to do when the board does nothing. It ends with an escalation ladder, a checklist and a made-up example.

If you already think the tribunal is where this is heading, read whether the NGT can hear your case and how to file a case in the NGT. If you want help with the first complaint itself, see our page on making a pollution complaint that gets action.

The essentials

A factory is running in a residential area. How do I get it shut?

Usually by knocking on two doors at once. A factory in a residential colony is often committing two separate wrongs. It may be breaking the master plan or zoning, which is the business of the development authority (DDA, GDA, the Noida Authority, HSVP and so on) or the municipal corporation. And it may be running without consent to operate from the State Pollution Control Board. Each authority can act on its own wrong without waiting for the other.

Note what the unit is, its name and address, what comes out of it (smoke, smell, noise, wastewater, vibration) and when. A flour chakki, a bakery oven, a dyeing unit and a plastic grinding unit are all treated differently. Then write two short complaints. To the development authority or municipal body: an industrial activity is running in a residential area against the master plan, please inspect and seal. To the State Board (DPCC in Delhi, UPPCB in Uttar Pradesh, HSPCB in Haryana): the unit is polluting and appears to have no consent, please inspect, take samples and act.

Boards can order closure and cut electricity and water under Air Act s.31A, Water Act s.33A and EP Act s.5, normally after a show-cause notice and hearing. Sealing for a land-use breach also follows inspection and notice, and owners often go to court or apply for regularisation. Think in weeks to months, not days, and keep the paper trail going while you wait.

The neighbours have been paid off or are scared. Can I still complain alone?

Yes. No law asks for a minimum number of complainants. The board, the development authority, the SDM and the NGT all act on one person's complaint if the facts are real. Section 18 of the NGT Act lets any person aggrieved apply, and the SDM's nuisance power under section 152 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023 can be set moving by anyone.

We see this pattern often. Take a typical case: a bakery runs its oven through the night in a residential lane, and the owner quietly pays the neighbours whose walls touch the unit so they will not object. When an officer visits, those neighbours say there is no problem. The family one house further along, whose children cough every night, is told the whole lane is happy.

What works then is evidence that does not depend on neighbours. A video of the chimney smoking at 2 am, a log of timings over three or four weeks, a doctor's note, the board's own inspection report and an RTI reply on consent status do not change because somebody was paid. Officers are meant to decide on pollution and permission, not on a show of hands.

If you fear the owner, ask in the complaint that your name not be shared with the unit; it is not guaranteed, but many officers respect it. Report any threat to the police in writing. An RWA, panchayat member or local NGO can also file in its own name; see environmental cases for communities and RWAs. Advocate B.K. Singh's usual advice to a resident who feels alone in a lane is to build the evidence first, because a dated video and an RTI reply on consent status do not change when neighbours change their minds.

How do I find out whether the unit has permission?

File an RTI with the State Board. Ask whether the unit holds consent to establish and consent to operate under the Water Act and Air Act, for copies of the consent orders with conditions and validity, its category (red, orange, green or white), recent inspection and sample reports, and action taken on complaints against it. A reply is due within 30 days.

The answer settles the strategy. No consent means the unit is operating illegally and should be closed until it gets one. If it has consent, read the conditions: stack height, hours, fuel, effluent treatment. Many units break at least one, and your complaint then asks the board to enforce its own order. A white category unit may be exempt from consent, but it still cannot cause a nuisance or break land-use rules. Our guide on CTE and CTO explains the two permissions.

File a second RTI with the development authority or municipal body for the plot's land use under the master plan, whether industrial use is permitted, and any notice or sealing order. Many boards ask for proof of conforming land use before granting consent, so if a unit in a residential plot holds consent, ask on what documents it was granted.

Which authority handles which problem

Send the first complaint to the middle column and a copy to the right. In Delhi read DPCC wherever the table says State Board.

When in doubt, send the same complaint to two authorities and say so in each letter. Neither can then claim it went to the wrong office.

A rice mill, stone crusher, brick kiln or DG set is polluting near us. Who do I complain to?

The State Pollution Control Board, at its regional office for your district (in Delhi, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee). Rice mills, stone crushers and brick kilns all need the board's consent, and its norms cover their dust, smoke, ash and wastewater. Write to the regional officer, attach evidence and ask for an inspection with samples.

Know what to point at. A rice mill throws husk dust and boiler ash and lets sour-smelling wastewater into a drain or field. A stone crusher coats crops, roofs and water tanks with fine dust and runs trucks through the village from early morning. A brick kiln's smoke hangs low over houses in winter. Many states have siting rules keeping crushers and kilns a set distance from habitation and schools, so ask in your RTI whether the unit meets the norm in your state's current notification. Copy the DM and SDM too: the district administration controls the roads the trucks use and often the permits feeding the crusher.

A large DG set in a market, mall or housing society must meet emission and noise norms, with an acoustic enclosure and a proper stack. In Delhi NCR, CAQM has restricted diesel generators, more tightly under GRAP. Complain to the State Board or DPCC, and for a society generator write to the managing committee as well. See our guide on DG set rules in Delhi NCR. In NCR, if the board is slow on any air source, write to the Commission for Air Quality Management.

Construction dust, garbage dumping and burning near us: what can I do?

Construction dust goes to the municipal corporation and the State Board, and in NCR to CAQM as well. Sites must control dust under the Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules 2016 and local norms: barricading, covered material, sprinkling, covered trucks, no debris on roads. Projects of 20,000 sq m built-up area and above also need environmental clearance with dust conditions. Photograph uncovered heaps and dry sprinklers and note the project name from the site board. Our page on dust rules for construction sites lists what builders must do.

Garbage is the municipal body's duty in a town and the gram panchayat's in a village. The solid waste rules under the EP Act require local bodies to collect and process waste and do not permit open burning. An overflowing dhalao, a plot turned into a dump, or a pile set alight every evening are complaints for the corporation's grievance cell, copied to the State Board. Burning can also go to the police and the SDM as a public nuisance.

Typically the site is cleared once and the dumping resumes within a fortnight. Do not let your complaint be closed after the first clean-up. Write back with fresh photos and ask for a lasting fix: a collection point, a boundary wall, challans against dumpers. Repeated, dated complaints are what later persuade an SDM or the NGT that the authority has failed.

A sewage drain or a dirty river near us: what can I do?

Separate the two kinds of dirty water. Domestic sewage from an open nala or overflowing sewer is the municipal corporation's or jal board's job. Industrial effluent (coloured, oily, foaming or chemical-smelling) is the State Board's matter under the Water Act, because no unit can discharge trade effluent without consent and treatment.

If a society or builder's STP is not working and raw sewage is going out, the State Board can act against them too; see sewage pollution and non-working STPs. For a river, pond or canal turning black, find the outfall and whether a factory, dairy or slaughterhouse lies upstream, then photograph the point where the discharge enters.

Ask the board in writing to sample at the outfall and upstream. Its own sample report carries far more weight than a private lab test, though a private report can support the request. River pollution usually involves several authorities, which is where the NGT has been most active, regularly directing joint inspections and action plans.

How to collect evidence that holds up

Mistakes that sink good complaints

The commonest is complaining only by phone or WhatsApp. It may bring a visit, but it leaves no record, and the SDM or NGT will later ask what you put in writing. The second is vagueness. 'Heavy pollution in our area' gives an officer nothing. Name the unit, the address, the hours and what you want: inspection, sampling, closure, sealing. Address it to the officer by designation, attach five or six good photographs, not fifty, and ask for a written reply.

Third, exaggeration. Claiming a unit is poisoning the city without medical support makes officers sceptical, and a false or vexatious claim at the NGT can attract costs under section 23. Fourth, waiting too long. The NGT generally expects an application within 6 months of the cause of action first arising, and 5 years for compensation, each with a possible 60 days more for sufficient cause. See NGT time limits.

I complained to the pollution board and nothing happened. What next?

Escalate in writing, one level at a time, and use the silence as evidence. Boards are short-staffed and complaints sit in files. After 15 to 30 days send a reminder quoting the diary number. Then file an RTI asking what action was taken, whether an inspection was done, and for copies of the report and any notice to the unit.

Next, write to the Member Secretary or Chairman of the State Board (or the DPCC head office), copying the CPCB, which oversees the state boards, and in NCR the CAQM. Alongside, petition the SDM under section 152 of the BNSS (the old section 133 CrPC) to remove the public nuisance. The SDM can make a conditional order and then hear the unit. This suits smoke, smell, noise and dumping that affect the public, not a quarrel between two houses.

Two heavier routes remain. A citizen can file a complaint in court under Water Act s.49, Air Act s.43 or EP Act s.19 after giving at least 60 days' notice of the offence and the intention to complain. Since the 2023 and 2024 amendments turned many violations into penalties decided by an adjudicating officer, check first that yours is still an offence. The other route is the National Green Tribunal.

The escalation ladder, from first complaint to the NGT

Most matters settle on the first few rungs. Climb only as far as you need, but keep a written record at each, because every later forum asks what you did before.

Steps 5 to 7 can run together. Keep one folder with every letter, receipt and reply in date order; when we take over a matter, it is the first thing we ask for.

When the NGT is the right step, and when it is not

The NGT makes sense when pollution is serious and continuing, the authorities were told in writing and did nothing, and you have evidence. It often forms a joint committee of the CPCB, the State Board and the DM to inspect and report, and you can object to that report. You may file in person, and the court fee is ₹1,000 where no compensation is claimed. If health, crops or property have suffered, plan a section 15 claim from the start; see compensation for pollution damage.

It is not the right step for a one-off incident that has stopped, a neighbour quarrel dressed up as pollution, or a land-use dispute with no environmental angle. Nor is it a shortcut: many applications end with directions to the authorities to act, so you may be back at the board, only now with a tribunal order behind you. Non-compliance with that order can be pursued through execution and is punishable under section 26.

Before you file: a checklist

Where to go from here

For a builder's or society's STP, or a project built without clearance, read housing society, STP and EC disputes. For loss already suffered, see claiming environmental compensation.