APCB orders relocation of waste facilities threatening Kaziranga National Park
The pollution also asked the Bokakhat Municipal Board to submit the action taken report in that regard within seven days.
Guwahati, Nov 19: Taking serious note of the environmental hazard posed to Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve by a municipal waste dumping site and a faecal sludge treatment plant, the Assam Pollution Control Board (APCB) has directed the Bokakhat Municipal Board to shift the facilities to an environmentally-safer area.
In a letter to the Bokakhat Municipal Board chairman, the APCB stated that the establishment and operation of those facilities were posing a serious threat to KNP and as such those should be relocated elsewhere.
“In view of this, the APCB is of the opinion that the entire facility consisting of the waste dumping site, Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant (FSTP) should be relocated to a environmentally safer area,” stated the letter dated November 12, 2025.
It also asked the Bokakhat Municipal Board to submit the action taken report in that regard within seven days.
Ironically, the alacrity of the APCB comes only after the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court-constituted Central Empowered Committee which recently sought a reply from the Assam government on the issue raised by environmental activist Rohit Choudhury.
Despite Choudhury’s repeated pleas to various authorities of the Assam government including the Chief Secretary, forest department and the Board for more than a year, the authorities chose to remain inert. In the mean time, the waste dumping and treatment facilities have been completed and are almost ready for operation.
Following the lack of response from the government, Choudhury moved the Supreme Court-constituted CEC over the threat to KNP from the waste dumping site and the FSTP which has been set up at Latabari on the banks of the Difloo river by the Bokakhat Municipal Board.
The CEC in its last hearing on October 29, 2025 granted four weeks’ time to the Government of Assam to submit its reply. It also sent an email to APCB dated November 4, 2025.