Section 6: Rules, and the Standards They Set

In one line

Section 6 is the power to make the rules, and the rules are where the actual environmental law of India lives.

In the wording a student can write in an examination: section 6 of the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 empowers the Central Government by notification in the Official Gazette to make rules in respect of all or any of the matters referred to in section 3, and in particular and without prejudice to the generality of that power such rules may provide for the standards of quality of air, water or soil for various areas and purposes; the maximum allowable limits of concentration of various environmental pollutants including noise for different areas; the procedures and safeguards for the handling of hazardous substances; the prohibition and restrictions on the handling of hazardous substances in different areas; the prohibition and restrictions on the location of industries and the carrying on of processes and operations in different areas; and the procedures and safeguards for the prevention of accidents which may cause environmental pollution and for providing for remedial measures for such accidents.

Why the section matters more than it looks

Because the whole of Modules III and IV rests on it, together with section 3 and section 25.

The Environment (Protection) Rules 1986 were made under sections 6 and 25. Rule 3 and Schedule I fix the standards. Rule 5 prescribes the procedure for restricting the location of an industry, and it is under rule 5 that the coastal notification and the impact assessment notification were both made. The hazardous chemical rules of 1989 were made under sections 6, 8 and 25. Every waste rule set was made under sections 6, 8 and 25.

A student who can trace a notification back to a clause of section 6 or section 3 understands how this Act works.

The six clauses of section 6(2)

Clause (a), the standards of quality of air, water or soil for various areas and purposes. Ambient standards: what the environment itself should be like. Note that soil is named, which neither earlier Act reaches.

Clause (b), the maximum allowable limits of concentration of various environmental pollutants including noise for different areas. Source standards, and the word noise appears here in terms. This is the textual basis of the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000 under this Act, and it answers the point that noise is not within the definition of an environmental pollutant in section 2(b).

Clause (c), the procedures and safeguards for the handling of hazardous substances. The hazardous chemical rules.

Clause (d), the prohibition and restrictions on the handling of hazardous substances in different areas. Area-based restriction on handling, which rule 13 of the Rules of 1986 elaborates.