Maharashtra Pollution Control Board To Mercedes Benz: Your Chakan Factory Violates Pollution Standards

Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) is said to have served a notice to German luxury car giant Mercedes Benz, claiming that the latter’s Chakan assembly facility has violated pollution standards.

The MPCB has also forfeited Rs. 25 lakh, which is the guarantee that Mercedes Benz had deposited for the pollution clearance at the time when the factory was commissioned. The MPCB tweeted about this soon after the inspection. Mysteriously, the tweet has now been deleted. Here’s a screenshot of the original tweet.

Here is MPCB’s statement regarding the alleged pollution violations by Mercedes Benz’s Chakan factory,

Siddhesh Kadam, the Chairman of MPCB has this to add,

Mercedes Benz India, for its part, has claimed that it has not received any notice from MPCB, and that it would take any corrective action needed.

Political storm erupts

Opposition leaders in Maharashtra are now questioning the MPCB’s Chairman Siddesh Kadam’s actions. Priyanka Chaturvedi, Rajya Sabha member from the Shiv Sena (UBT) tweeted this, and raised questions on why the MPCB’s tweets were deleted,

Apart from Priyanka Chaturvedi, Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra’s State Legislative Assembly, Vijay Waddetiwar has also come out strongly against MPCB chairman’s surprise visit to the Mercedes Benz Chakan factory, and has raised a bunch of questions, through a strongly worded post on Twitter (now X)

2. Why the sudden inspection tour when no notice has been issued to Mercedes Benz regarding their plant?
3. Technical experienced officers go for any inspection but yesterday there were 35 people with Siddesh Kadam out of which only four were government employees, so what were these 31 private people doing in a company’s plant?
4. Did Siddesh Kadam go there for a photo shoot when photography is prohibited in the company’s plant?
5. Why was the tweet about this inspection tour deleted from the board’s tweet handle?

As questions are being raised about the MPCB Chairman’s action against Mercedes Benz’s alleged pollution norms violations, it’ll be interesting to see the stand taken by the government of Maharashtra.

Also being closely watched is Mercedes Benz India’s next move as the allegations made by the chairman of the MPCB seem grave given the fact that the MPCB has even forfeited Mercedes Benz’s Rs. 25 lakh bank guarantee.