Byrnihat Crisis: The Friction within India's Environmental Architecture

Introduction

Byrnihat’s particulate matter concentration between 2023–25 surpassed that of Delhi and numerous cities that had become synonymous with the pollution charts themselves. As a result, Byrnihat earned, for itself, the distinction of being not only India’s but also ‘the world’s most polluted city’.  When citing such evidence, it is easy to criticise the government for inaction. However, pre-empting this reductionist view of inactivity, empirical records demonstrate that both the centre and the state have indeed taken some measures. For instance, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) formally listed Byrnihat as a ‘non-attainment city’ under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) for violating the 60 μg/m³ PM10 ceiling of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). On the state level, authorities, on both the Assam and Meghalaya sides of the border, collectively shut down about 31 high-polluting industrial units. But clean air has still not been secured in Byrnihat.

This piece attempts to bring a perspective change on the Byrnihat issue by analysing incongruences embedded within the constitutional design and highlighting the fragmented governance structure it harbours. It does so by analysing the absence of the term ‘environment’ from the 7th Schedule; highlighting the centralisation of environmental matters through statutes—like the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (1974), the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (1981), and the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) (1986); and finally, pitting them against provisions for tribal autonomy enlisted within the 6th Schedule to unravel an added layer of tension in environmental governance. However, before diving into those sections, it is first necessary to understand the status of the crisis at hand.  

The Anatomy of a Shared Airshed 

Byrnihat is a small interstate town lying in the Umling block of the Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya, while sitting about 14 to 20 kilometres away from the urban centre of Guwahati on the Assam side. The geographic position of Byrnihat, marked by the Khasi hills in the south and the Brahmaputra floodplain in the north, along with its low altitude of 66 to 100 metres above sea level, creates a narrow, ‘bow-shaped’ valley. This unique topography restricts wind movement and physically traps particulate emissions; as a result, Byrnihat turns into a localised sink where both air and soil pollutants accumulate. Presently, Byrnihat represents an ecological crisis where abject atmospheric and terrestrial degradation intersect.

In 2025, when Byrnihat topped the pollution list of IQAir, the largest real-time air-quality data platform, as the world’s most polluted city of 2024, it recorded an annual PM2.5 concentration of 128.2 μg/m³, 25 times more than the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual exposure guideline of 5 μg/m³. In addition to IQAir’s reports, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) also identified Byrnihat as India’s most polluted city in 2023 and 2025. This atmospheric breakdown is coupled with degradation of land and water resources. The continuous release of chemical ash residue affects not only the air but also local soil. According to two studies in 2024, the town’s groundwater has also been contaminated with heavy metals, exceeding limits set by the Indian Bureau of Standards as well as the WHO. 

The economic engine of the town, the Export Promotion Industrial Park (EPIP), is regarded as one of the primary reasons for this pollution crisis. Built on an estate spanning 256 acres on the Meghalaya-Assam border, administrative control of industrial units is divided between Shillong and Guwahati. Of the 39 industries on the Assam side and the 21 industries on the Meghalaya side, Assam hosts 20 high-polluting ‘red category’ units, while Meghalaya finds itself a host to 3 such units.  As a result, the Assam side of the industrial cluster has been identified as a Critically Polluted Area (CPA). In spite of this categorisation and the concentration of a bulk of the high-polluting industries on the Assam side, the Meghalaya sector of the town is designated as a non-attainment city under NCAP. This reveals a harsh reality: that the environment defies artificial legal boundaries imposed by internal borders. The split jurisdiction means that in spite of sharing an airshed, the Pollution Control Board of each state is limited by the extent of its territory—rendering them partially powerless to clean their own air. 

Environment and the Seventh Schedule

The regulatory paralysis discussed in the previous section is structurally predetermined by the Indian Constitution’s failure to explicitly allocate environmental jurisdiction under the Seventh Schedule. State governments derive their authority indirectly through entries related to local resources and public safety, specifically Entry 6, Entry 14, Entry 18 and Entry 23 within the State List (List II). The central government derives its jurisdiction through entries of national and transboundary importance, like Entry 52, Entry 54 and Entry 56 in the Union List (List I). Entry 17A, Entry 17B and Entry 20 of the Concurrent List (List III) establish joint competence on ecological assets for both the centre and the state. Thus, while states have primary jurisdiction over the day-to-day management of land (Entry 18) and public health (Entry 6), the Union has jurisdiction over industrial and mineral sectors that drive pollution (Entries 52 and 54). This reasonably leads us to interpret the omission as a foundational defect of environmental federalism. Because natural media like air and water are physically continuous but legally distributed across parallel lists, the legal architecture is structurally incapable of managing airsheds like that of Byrnihat. 

The governance structure on environmental matters is further muddled by Entry 97 of the Union List (List I), which grants residuary powers (any matters not enumerated in List II or List III) exclusively to Parliament. The post-Bhopal reliance on such residuary powers to frame the EPA has allowed the Union to construct a regime with a strong central tilt.  Adding on, the criteria, process and the terms of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification 2006 are dictated by the Centre. All this means that in spite of possessing the authority, states can be systematically bypassed; this has led states to complain that they have been reduced to mere ‘implementing agencies’ with limited say in the appraisal of projects that have profound implications on their territory. Thus, reliance on residuary powers has hollowed out subnational autonomy. Also, complexities are further incremented by the fact that State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) are administratively and financially dependent on state governments whose economic policies often serve as hurdles to the realisation of the centre’s environmental standards. Moreover, ambiguity is added to an already complex situation when considering that Byrnihat, a Sixth Schedule region, is also under the governance jurisdiction of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC). If central statutes can reduce states to passive implementers, the legal position of the sub-state Sixth Schedule body is rendered doubly precarious. This is because when centralising state executives assert federal dominance over land-use and environmental clearances, it bypasses both the state and the ADC, leaving traditional councils without any say or veto. 

Byrnihat’s Governance Overlap: Environmental Federalism and the Sixth Schedule

The Constitution establishes Autonomous District Councils in the northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. Paragraph 3(1) of the Sixth Schedule vests in these councils explicit power to make laws with respect to (i) allotment, division, occupation, or the use of land other than reserved forest; (ii) management of forest other than reserved forest; (iii) use of canal or watercourse; and (iv) matters relating to village or town administration, including village or town police and public health and sanitation. In the context of Byrnihat’s industrial park, the aforementioned domains are directly or indirectly implicated and systematically degraded. The severe pollution of the Umtrew River via effluent dumping and the heavy metal poisoning of groundwater sources directly invade the constitutional sphere of the ADC’s. Because the river and the surrounding soil constitute ‘watercourses’ and ‘lands’ as mentioned under Paragraph 3 of the Sixth Schedule, any regulatory body that permits their degradation effectively nullifies the legal authority of the tribal council. 

The above listings have been highlighted, in a way, not to suggest that the functions of District Councils are solely environmental, or to claim that ADCs possess environmental jurisdiction to begin with; rather, they have been highlighted to show that the ADCs can regulate certain aspects of the environment through powers vested in them under paragraph 3(1). What is important to note is that, over time, as statues regarding the environment began being discussed, Parliament seemed to favour centralisation. This is exactly what the Byrnihat issue does best, that is, showcase the design complexities that have been constructed through successive legislative interventions.

Initially, jurisdiction was divided along Centre-State lines through the Union and State Lists. Given Byrnihat’s location, it meant that the Sixth Schedule also granted authority to the District Council (KHADC). The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 then created the Pollution Control Boards. What this act might have not accounted for, however, was that border territories could potentially be managed by two boards. In Byrnihat’s case, one belongs to Meghalaya and the other to Assam. 

The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 did not tidy this up. It made the Union in charge of the entire field of ‘environment’ without withdrawing what the Sixth Schedule had already granted. Part of what complicates this issue is lexical. The Constitution distributes power by named subject; the Environment Act legislates for a category that encompasses them all.  So, in a sense, through the 1986 Act the Centre accumulated jurisdiction without a transfer of specific matters.

Conclusion

When reading remarks of elected leaders, one naturally tends to question political will and quite naturally so. In October 2023, after the CPCB recorded an AQI of 302, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said the factories on the Meghalaya side were well monitored and fewer than those across the border. A similar redirection was made by Chief Minister Conrad Sangma when disputing IQAir's reading itself, preferring the MSPCB's figure of 50.1 μg/m³ against the reported 128.2 μg/m³, before then pointing to the twenty red category industries in Assam. Lastly, in an incident as recent as June of this year, when asked about an ethanol blending unit, Health Minister Wailadmiki Shylla said no complaint had been filed. 

Three ministers, and in each case, jurisdiction elsewhere to point at. The absence of political will to begin with cannot be ignored; however, the argument being made here is that architectural failure cannot be ignored either. Much of the fault lies in the structure. Redirection only works because the structure allows for it. In practice, what this means is that while many bodies hold the power to act, inaction is more convenient because no single body can ever be held wholly responsible. The Byrnihat issue clearly shows what happens when statutes stack onto a category that the Sixth and Seventh Schedules divide.

While the Byrnihat crisis does highlight structural issues with clarity, solutions may not be found easily. So, the question stands: How is a regulatory system built around a subject the Constitution never listed supposed to sit alongside a form of self-rule that predates the statutes now overriding it? 

The author is an Editorial Intern at Ramjas Political Review.

Featured Image Credit: The Economic Times