River Pollution and Floodplain Construction: NGT Remedies

A river gets damaged in two ways that the law treats as connected: what goes into the water, and what is built on the land the river needs when it floods. Effluent, sewage and dumping are pollution under the Water Act, and the State Pollution Control Board can stop them. Walls, plots, warehouses and fill on the river bed or floodplain are usually barred by master plans, revenue law and, in some states, floodplain zoning law. When local offices do not act, the National Green Tribunal can order a joint inspection, stop the activity and direct restoration at the cost of whoever caused the harm.

We act for villages and colonies along rivers, for farmers whose fields flood after someone raised the land upstream, and for RWAs watching a nala turn into a sewer before it reaches the river. We also advise landowners, builders and units who have received a notice about the floodplain or about discharge, and need to know where they stand.

This page is the starting point. The detailed guides are on what the law allows on a river floodplain, encroachment blocking a natural drain and how to complain about industrial discharge into a river.

The essentials

Someone is building on the riverbank or polluting the river near us. What can we do?

Separate the two problems first, because they go to different offices. If something is going into the water, such as factory effluent, sewage, tanker dumping or ash, the State Pollution Control Board is the main authority, and it can inspect, sample and direct closure under section 33A of the Water Act. If something is being built or filled on the river bed or floodplain, the authorities are the development authority or municipal body (under the master plan and building bye-laws), the irrigation or flood control department (which usually controls embankments and river land), and the tehsildar and SDM (who can act on encroachment of government land).

Write to each in plain words, with photos and a location, and keep the acknowledgments. Ask the revenue office for the record of the land: river bed land is almost always government land, and floodplain land is often marked as such in the master plan even when it is privately owned. That record decides most cases.

If the offices do not act, the NGT is the forum built for this. River pollution falls under the Water Act and the EP Act, both in Schedule I of the NGT Act, and construction that damages a river or floodplain raises a substantial environmental question. The tribunal usually begins by asking a joint committee to inspect and report.

The situations we see most often

• Plotting and farmhouses on the floodplain. Agricultural land in the river's flood zone is cut into plots or farmhouses, often with earth filling to raise the level, and sold with no mention of flood risk.
• Walls and embankments built by private parties. A landowner raises a wall to protect his land, and the water is pushed onto the village or fields across the river.
• Debris and fill on the river bed. Construction and demolition waste is dumped on the river edge until it becomes level ground, and then a shed appears on it.
• Effluent from units upstream. A drain from an industrial area carries coloured or foaming water into the river, and fish die downstream after rain.
• Town sewage. Untreated sewage from a town or a new sector enters the river through nalas, because the STP is undersized, not built or not connected.
• Blocked natural drains. A seasonal stream or nala that carried rainwater to the river is covered, narrowed or built over, and colonies flood every monsoon.
• Sand mining in the river bed. Mining beyond the lease area or with heavy machinery changes the river's course and damages banks and bridges; see our page on illegal sand mining complaints.

The law in plain words

Which authority to approach for which river problem

The NGT bench depends on your state: the Principal Bench in New Delhi or the zonal benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. Our page on filing a case in the NGT explains the filing.

Is construction on a river floodplain illegal?

Often, but not always, and the answer depends on where the land sits on the master plan and what your state's law says. Permanent construction on the active river bed is almost never lawful. On the wider floodplain, many plans allow only agriculture, nurseries, parks or open recreation, and bar housing, warehouses and industry. Some cities allow limited construction above a defined flood level. Earth filling to raise private land is a separate problem, because it pushes floodwater onto neighbours even where a small building might have been permitted.

What matters in practice is evidence of the zone (a certified master plan extract or a reply from the development authority) and evidence of the flood (photos of past floods, newspaper reports, the irrigation department's flood records). The detail is in our guide on construction on a river floodplain, and large riverfront schemes by government bodies are covered in riverfront development and floodplain rules.

Who is responsible when a river is polluted?

Every source separately. Industrial units answer for their own effluent under their consent orders. Municipal bodies and water boards answer for town sewage entering the river through drains they control, and the NGT has in recent years held states and local bodies liable for untreated sewage and directed them to build and run treatment capacity. The State Board answers for not enforcing. The NGT has also required states to prepare and carry out action plans for river stretches that the CPCB has identified as polluted.

For a resident or farmer, the point is that a polluted river is rarely one polluter's doing, and a complaint aimed at only one unit can stall when that unit points at the town drain. Name every source you can see. Our guides on town sewage entering a river and industrial effluent and water pollution go further.

Dams, hydropower and river projects

Large projects on rivers, such as dams, barrages, hydropower plants and riverfront schemes, usually need environmental clearance, and many need forest clearance as well. A challenge to the clearance itself goes to the NGT as an appeal within 30 days of communication. Complaints that a project is not releasing the flows its clearance requires, or is dumping muck into the river, are breaches of clearance conditions, which the regional office of the environment ministry, the State Board and ultimately the NGT can act on. Downstream villages that lose water for irrigation or drinking, or whose fields are buried in muck after a flushing operation, can seek both compliance and compensation. Our guide on hydropower projects and river flows covers those cases.

A plan from first complaint to the NGT

This sequence works for most river and floodplain matters. You can do the first five steps yourself.

Where construction is moving fast, ask for interim protection early; our guide on interim relief and stay in the NGT explains when tribunals grant it.

What to collect

Before you file anything, check these

What we do at each stage

• First review. We read your photos and records and tell you whether it is a pollution case, a land case or both, and which authority should be pushed first.
• Records. We draft the RTI applications for land records, master plan zone, consents and sanctions, so the facts are on paper.
• Complaints. We prepare a complaint to each authority that cites the right provision and asks for specific action.
• NGT application. We draft and file the original application or appeal, choose the respondents and frame the relief, including interim orders and restoration.
• Inspection and objections. We prepare you for the joint committee's site visit and file objections to a weak report.
• Compliance. We follow the authorities after the order and file an execution application if deadlines pass.

For landowners, builders and units who have received a notice

A notice about floodplain construction or river discharge is serious but not the end. For land, check the basis: is the land really shown as floodplain on the plan in force on the date you built, or on an older or newer plan? Was a sanction granted, and by whom? Officials sometimes issue notices on the strength of a rough line on a map. For discharge, check the sample: where it was taken, by whom, and whether your outlet was actually the source.

Advocate B.K. Singh's usual advice to a unit or landowner in this position is to reply in writing within the time given, with documents, and to fix what can be fixed at once, such as plugging a stray outlet or stopping filling, because a tribunal looks closely at conduct after the notice. Directions of the board under Water Act s.33A can be appealed to the NGT under s.33B within 30 days; our page on replying to a pollution board notice covers that.

Mistakes that weaken river cases

The most common mistake is going straight to the NGT without any complaint to the authorities or any land record. The tribunal will ask what the board and the development authority said, and whether the land is in fact floodplain. Another is waiting until a project is finished. A tribunal can order demolition of completed work, but it weighs delay, and residents who watched a colony go up for three years without complaining face hard questions.

People also mix up the forums. A private dispute about whose land a wall stands on is a civil suit, not an environmental case. A purely criminal matter, such as threats from a sand mafia, goes to the police. And when Advocate B.K. Singh reviews a river complaint, he checks first whether the 6-month period under section 14 is still open or whether the case must be framed as continuing harm or as a claim for restoration under section 15, because that choice shapes everything that follows.

NGT, High Court or civil court?

For pollution of a river and environmental damage from floodplain construction, the NGT is usually the right forum, and High Courts generally send such disputes there. A writ in the High Court still makes sense where the main grievance is an unlawful government decision with little environmental content, or where a fundamental right is at stake and the NGT cannot give the relief. Our guide on choosing between a High Court writ and an NGT case sets out the factors. Where the problem is a waterbody away from the river itself, see our page on lake, pond and wetland encroachment.