Hazardous Waste Authorization in India

You apply to your State Pollution Control Board, or the Pollution Control Committee in a Union territory, using Form 1 under Rule 6(1) of the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016. You must enclose your Water Act and Air Act consents. The Board inspects the site and must decide within 120 days. If it grants the authorisation, it does so in Form 2, valid for five years (2016 Rules, G.S.R. 395(E), English text p. 57).

Step 1: Check you actually need it Under Rule 6(1A), added in 2019, you are exempt if you need no consent to establish or consent to operate under the Water Act, 1974 and the Air Act, 1981. Your waste must still go to an actual user, waste collector or disposal operator (G.S.R. 178(E)).

Step 2: Get your consents first Rule 6(1) requires the application to include a copy of each of these (p. 57):

• consent to establish under the Water Act and the Air Act;
• consent to operate under the Water Act and/or the Air Act;
• for a renewal, a self-certified compliance report covering effluent and emission standards and the conditions of your current authorisation.

Step 3: Complete Form 1 (Gazette pp. 87-89)

• Part A (all applicants):
  • unit name, address and location;
  • occupier's name and designation, with phone, fax and email;
  • the activities you want authorised, ticked from the list: generation, collection, storage, transportation, reception, reuse, recycling, recovery, pre-processing, co-processing, utilisation, treatment, disposal, incineration;
  • quantity of waste handled per year and the most you store at any one time (tonnes or kilolitres);
  • year of commissioning and shift pattern;
  • an Emergency Response Plan for spills, releases and fire that follows CPCB guidelines;
  • an undertaking to comply, including possibly having to give a bank guarantee if there is a spill, leak or fire.
  • For a renewal, also give your previous authorisation numbers and dates, the last three years' annual returns, and compliance reports on your prior Environmental Clearance conditions where one applies.
• Part B (generators):
  • products and by-products, with yearly quantities;
  • process flow sheet showing inputs and outputs;
  • characteristics and yearly quantity of each waste;
  • how each waste is managed: storage capacity, use within the plant, what happens to waste not used in the plant, and transport to actual users or a treatment, storage and disposal facility (TSDF);
  • environmental safeguards;
  • waste arising from storing hazardous chemicals under the Manufacture, Storage and Import of Hazardous Chemicals (MSIHC) Rules, 1989.
• Part C (TSDF operators):
  • site layout map;
  • storage and treatment capacities;
  • secured landfill, incineration, leachate system and firefighting;
  • environmental management plan and arrangements for transport from generators;
  • any other activities on the site;
  • a copy of the prior Environmental Clearance.
• Part D (recyclers, pre-processors, co-processors and users):
  • wastes received each year, domestic and imported;
  • installed capacity, with a copy of the registration from the District Industries Centre or other agency;
  • secured storage;
  • process flow sheet;
  • end users of your products and by-products;
  • pollution control systems;
  • occupational health and safety measures;
  • a report on compliance with CPCB guidelines;
  • transport arrangements.

The applicant signs the form and gives designation, date and place.

Step 4: Board review and decision (Rule 6(2)-(4), pp. 57-58)

• The Board processes only a complete application. It checks your facilities and technical capability against CPCB's standard operating procedures and guidelines, and inspects the site. Schedule IV recyclers are assessed against CPCB's existing guidelines.
• Grant: Form 2, valid for five years, with conditions and a copy of the signed field inspection report.
• Refusal: only with written reasons, and after giving you a reasonable chance to be heard.
• Renewal: you can apply up to three months before expiry. The Board must first confirm, and record in its inspection report, that you have not breached your earlier conditions.

Special cases

• Using waste as a resource or pre-processing it (Rule 9): the authorisation is based on CPCB's standard operating procedures. If no procedure covers your use, you first need CPCB approval based on trial runs. Co-processing in cement plants needs no trial run because CPCB guidelines already exist (pp. 58-59).
• Traders importing Schedule III Part D waste for actual users: a one-time authorisation (Rule 13(2)(c), p. 60), applied for in Form 7 under the 2021 substitution I described last time.
• Imports and exports in Schedule III Parts A and B: these need MoEFCC permission in Form 5, which is separate from SPCB authorisation (Rules 13-14, pp. 59-60).

After you are authorised (Rule 6(5)-(8), p. 58)

• Keep records in Form 3.
• File a Form 4 annual return by 30 June.
• Actual users record every purchase in the passbook the Board issues with the authorisation; nobody may hand waste over to them until the entry is made.
• The Board can suspend or cancel the authorisation for breaches, after a hearing (Rule 7).

Approach: Our MoEF Gazette archive holds only older waste rules, and CPCB's national hazardous waste inventory has nothing on how to apply. I therefore read Rule 6 and Form 1 in the 2016 Gazette text on CPCB's site. The Rules do not say whether the application is filed online or on paper, and I did not check individual SPCB portals.

You file Form 4, the "Form for Filing Annual Returns", with your State Pollution Control Board by 30 June each year. It covers the previous financial year, April to March. This duty comes from Rule 6(5) of the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016. Rule 20(2) repeats it as a general duty on every occupier and disposal facility operator. Form 4 is built from the Form 3 records you keep through the year (2016 Rules, G.S.R. 395(E), pp. 58, 63, 91-92).

Where the duty comes from

• Rule 6(5) (p. 58): every authorised occupier keeps a record in Form 3. It sends the SPCB an annual return with the details in Form 4 "on or before the 30th day of June following the financial year to which that return relates."
• Rule 16(6) (p. 61): operators of common or captive treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs) file the same Form 4 return by 30 June.
• Form 2, general condition 14 (p. 90): your authorisation itself says "Annual return shall be filed by June 30th" for the year ending 31 March. Missing it therefore also breaches the authorisation, which the Board can suspend or cancel under Rule 7.
• The Form 4 heading lists Rules 6(5), 13(8), 16(6) and 20(2). Rule 13 covers imports.
• Deposition centres for domestic hazardous waste also file a Form 4 return, under Rule 6(1C) as added in 2024 (G.S.R. 177(E)).

What Form 4 asks for (pp. 91-92)

Everyone fills in:

• facility name and address;
• authorisation number and date of issue;
• the authorised person's contact details;
• production during the year, product by product, where applicable.

Then the Part that fits your activity:

Part	Who fills it	Data required
A	Hazardous waste generators	Total waste generated, by category; quantity dispatched to a disposal facility, to recyclers, co-processors or pre-processors, or to others; quantity used in-house; quantity in storage at year end
B	TSDF operators	Total received; opening stock; quantity treated; quantity landfilled, as received and after treatment; quantity incinerated; quantity processed in other ways; closing stock
C	Recyclers, co-processors and other users	Waste received, from domestic sources and imported; opening stock; quantity recycled, co-processed or used; products dispatched; waste generated; waste disposed; quantity re-exported; closing stock

The occupier, or the disposal facility operator, signs the form and gives the date and place.

What it feeds into

• Under Rule 20(3), the SPCB uses the returns to compile its state inventory of waste generated, recycled, recovered, co-processed, re-exported and disposed. It sends this to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) by 30 September.
• Under Rule 20(4), CPCB consolidates the state inventories into a national review for MoEFCC (p. 63).
• CPCB's national inventory reports name units that have not filed. For example, the 2023-24 inventory lists Schedule IV recyclers of used lead-acid batteries and used oil as "Not submitted Annual Returns" for each year shown ^[1][2].

Other records you keep alongside the return

• Form 3: a date-wise log of each waste generated or received, with its category, quantity, storage method, and where it went or came from. Imported and domestic waste are logged separately (p. 90).
• Actual users: the SPCB passbook for every purchase (Rule 6(7)).
• Imports: if you import waste, your Form 5 undertaking commits you to quarterly reports to the SPCB on how the imported waste was used and what happened to it (p. 93).

Approach: Our archive of MoEF Gazette notifications does not hold the 2016 Rules, so I read Rules 6, 16 and 20 and Forms 2 to 4 in the 2016 Gazette text on CPCB's site. I also checked CPCB's national hazardous waste inventory for its annual-return status entries. The Rules don't say whether Form 4 goes in online or on paper, and I didn't check individual SPCB portals or any separate returns under the used-oil or waste-tyre EPR regimes.