Factory Air Pollution: Smoke, Stack Emissions and Odour Complaints

If a factory chimney near your home throws out black smoke, the air smells of burning rubber or chemicals at night, or a fine layer of dust settles on your roof every morning, the law is on your side. Under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981, a factory needs the State Pollution Control Board's consent to run and must keep its emissions within the standards. The board can inspect, sample the stack, impose environmental compensation and order closure. If the board sits on your complaint, the National Green Tribunal can make it act.

This page is for people living next to a smoking, smelling or dusty factory, and for factory owners who have received a complaint or board notice about air emissions. It covers the law in plain words, who does what, a step-by-step plan, the evidence that works, and what we do at each stage.

If your problem is one specific source, our shorter guides go deeper: how to complain about factory smoke near your home, industrial odour and bad smell complaints, boiler and furnace emission rules for factories and brick kiln pollution and distance norms.

The essentials

Is smoke or smell from a factory near my home illegal?

Often it is, but not always, and the difference matters. The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981 does not ban emissions. It requires an industry that emits air pollutants in an air pollution control area (in practice large areas, often whole states) to obtain consent from the State Pollution Control Board under section 21, and section 22 bars it from releasing pollutants beyond the standards the board lays down. So the legal question is rarely 'is there smoke?' and almost always 'is this unit running with valid consent, and is it within its standards?'

The Act defines an air pollutant widely: any solid, liquid or gaseous substance in the air in a concentration that may harm people, other living things, plants, property or the environment. That covers smoke, soot, ash, metal fumes, solvent vapour, the gases behind bad smells, and fugitive dust from open stockpiles and unpaved yards.

The standards sit mostly in the schedules to the Environment (Protection) Rules 1986, which set limits industry by industry, and in each unit's consent order. A consent order typically fixes the fuel, the control equipment, the stack height and the monitoring. Breaking any of those conditions is a breach even if the smoke looks thin from the road.

Two other routes run alongside. The Environment (Protection) Act 1986 allows binding directions under section 5, including closure. And a nuisance that makes a locality's air unfit to breathe can be ordered removed by the SDM or DM under section 152 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita 2023.

Smoke, stack emissions, dust and odour: what each usually means

This table links what residents usually notice to its likely cause and to what an inspecting officer should check.

Where to complain about factory air pollution

The State Pollution Control Board is the first stop; in Delhi it is the Delhi Pollution Control Committee. It grants and cancels consent, inspects, samples stacks and ambient air, issues notices and directions, and imposes environmental compensation. A complaint delivered at the regional office with a receiving stamp is still the most reliable start.

The SDM or DM is a second track that runs alongside the board, not after it. Under section 152 BNSS, the magistrate can order a person causing a public nuisance to remove it or stop the trade, after hearing them. It works best where the problem is obvious to any visitor, such as a chimney showering soot on a mohalla. The municipal body or development authority matters where the unit runs in a residential zone.

The police come in for criminal acts, such as burning waste at night, threats to complainants, or an accident involving a gas release. In Delhi NCR, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) also controls which fuels industries may burn and enforces GRAP restrictions; our page on GRAP and CAQM compliance explains how those rules apply to factories.

The National Green Tribunal is the forum when the authorities fail, when the harm is serious, or when compensation is needed. The High Court's writ jurisdiction remains, but High Courts usually send such disputes to the NGT.

Which forum for which problem

How to get action against a polluting factory

This is the sequence we suggest to residents. Most wasted months come from complaints that were never properly lodged or never followed up, not from the law being slow.

For the filing process itself, see how to file a case in the NGT.

What the pollution board actually does with your complaint

A good complaint usually leads to an inspection by an engineer or scientist from the regional office. They check the consent papers, the fuel in use, whether the air pollution control equipment is installed and running, the equipment logbooks and the stack. For a proper finding they collect a stack sample, or ambient air samples at the boundary, and send them to the board's laboratory, where the result is compared with the limit in the consent or the EP Rules.

Units that get advance warning know the drill: clean fuel that day, a freshly cleaned bag filter, a watered yard. That is why residents' logs of night-time emissions matter; they tell the officer when to come. Units in the more polluting categories also send data from online continuous emission monitoring systems, and gaps in that data are a warning sign.

If the sample fails or the unit is found running without consent, the usual next step is a show-cause notice. After a hearing, the board can issue directions under section 31A of the Air Act: install or upgrade equipment within a set time, stop a process, close the unit, or cut its electricity or water. Boards also levy environmental compensation using the CPCB's formula-based method. Closure is usually revoked once compliance is shown, often with a bank guarantee.

Documents and evidence that make a factory air pollution case

What we do at each stage

• First review. We read your complaint trail, RTI replies, photos and logs, and tell you plainly whether the matter is ready for the board, the SDM or the NGT.
• Complaint and RTI drafting. We draft a complaint that names the source, the breach and the specific action asked for, and RTI applications aimed at the papers that decide the case.
• Follow-up with the board. We write to the regional officer, and the member secretary where needed, asking for inspection at the logged times and copies of results.
• NGT application. We draft and file the original application with the right respondents, ask for a joint committee inspection, and handle objections to the committee's report.
• Compensation. Where people have suffered health effects or damage to crops or property, we frame a claim under section 15 of the NGT Act; see our page on compensation for pollution damage.
• For industries. We reply to show-cause notices, appear at board hearings, appeal directions to the NGT within the 30-day window, and help units get closure orders revoked once they comply.

Received a complaint or board notice about emissions?

Do not ignore it, and do not reply with a one-line denial. Boards decide on the record. A reply backed by a recent stack report from a recognised laboratory, fuel bills, equipment logbooks and photographs carries weight; a reply blaming a neighbour's grudge does not.

Check three things on the day the notice arrives: the date it was received, the deadline it sets, and the provision it is issued under. A show-cause notice is a chance to be heard. A direction under section 31A of the Air Act or section 5 of the EP Act is an order, and an appeal lies to the NGT within 30 days of communication, with up to 60 more days for sufficient cause. An order refusing consent or imposing conditions goes first to the state appellate authority under section 31 of the Air Act.

When Advocate B.K. Singh reviews an emissions notice for a unit, the first thing he looks at is whether the board's sample was taken and tested properly, and the second is whether the unit can show compliance quickly. In practice the second matters more. A unit that installs the missing bag filter, changes fuel and files a fresh stack report usually gets further than one that only argues procedure. Our pages on replying to a closure notice and appealing a pollution board order cover the next steps.

Factory air pollution cases we commonly see

Small and medium units in mixed areas generate most of the complaints: tyre and plastic pyrolysis units running at night, small foundries, plastic and rubber reprocessors, rendering units, and husk or wood-fired boilers on the edge of industrial estates. Many have consent on paper but run equipment that is undersized, poorly kept or switched off to save electricity.

Large plants raise different problems: fugitive dust from clinker and raw material handling, stack emissions from kilns and furnaces, fly ash, and heavy truck movement. Those cases turn on monitoring data and on consent and environmental clearance conditions, and are covered in our guides on cement plant dust and stack emissions and hot mix and asphalt plant pollution.

A third group is units that should not be where they are at all: a red category process running in a residential colony, or a unit on village land with no consent of any kind. Here the strongest point is usually land use and the absence of consent, not the colour of the smoke, and the municipal or development authority becomes a necessary party.

Mistakes that weaken air pollution complaints

• Complaining by phone only. Without a written complaint and a diary number there is no record that the authority knew, and no inaction to show the NGT later.
• Photos without dates or context. A picture of smoke against the sky proves little. Show the chimney, the unit's gate or signboard, and the date and time.
• Relying on an AQI app. City readings from a station kilometres away say little about one chimney. Use them as background, not proof.
• Waiting a year before acting. The NGT's six-month limit runs from when the cause of action first arose. Continuing pollution helps, but delay is always argued against you.
• Going straight to the NGT with nothing on record. The tribunal will want to know what the board was told and what it did. A filed complaint and follow-up make the application stronger.

Before you file an NGT application against a factory

When a legal case is not the right answer

Not every smell or puff of smoke justifies litigation. A unit with valid consent that passes its stack tests and has an occasional bad hour at start-up is better handled by a firm written complaint and a conversation through the RWA or panchayat. An NGT application built on one photograph is likely to end with a direction to the board, which you could have got yourself.

An unrelated dispute dressed up as a pollution case, such as a boundary fight or business rivalry, tends to backfire: section 23 of the NGT Act allows compensatory costs against a false or vexatious claim. Keep the demand specific: inspection, compliance, closure until compliance, and compensation where harm is shown.

Related guides and services

If you are still at the complaint stage, our page on pollution complaints that get action explains how to frame the first letter. If the matter is heading to the tribunal, see NGT case filing.

Air pollution complaints often overlap with other problems; a crushing unit raises dust and noise together. See stone crusher and quarry pollution and noise pollution complaints.