The ChangeMakers Magazine Investigation

Introduction

At the heart of Bhiwandi’s unfolding expired-food controversy sits a document that, on close reading, authorises nothing of the kind it is apparently being invoked to justify. A “Consent to Establish and Operate” issued by the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board’s (MPCB) Sub Regional Office, Bhiwandi (SRO Bhiwandi), to M/s. R K Traders — a scrap segregation unit at House No. 582/4, Kambe Road, Village Katai, Bhiwandi — has surfaced in connection with the wider investigation into expired and near-expiry food products moving through Bhiwandi’s warehousing and resale networks, including the matter under FIR No. 277/2026.

This report examines what the certificate actually permits, what MPCB’s and SRO Bhiwandi’s statutory role is in issuing it, and the serious regulatory gap exposed if this document — or its like — is being relied upon, directly or by implication, to lend an appearance of legitimacy to the sale of expired food items to the public.

Part I: What MPCB and SRO Bhiwandi Actually Do

The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board is the state’s statutory environmental regulator, constituted to implement the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and the Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2016. Its Sub Regional Offices, such as SRO Bhiwandi, are the field-level authorities that:

• Grant Consent to Establish (CTE) and Consent to Operate (CTO) to industrial and trade units under Sections 25 and 26 of the Water Act and Section 21 of the Air Act;
• Fix conditions on effluent discharge, air emissions, noise, and solid/hazardous waste handling;
• Authorise (or renew authorisation for) hazardous waste generators under Rule 5 of the HW (M&H) Rules, 2016;
• Monitor compliance through inspection, sampling, and mandatory annual Environmental Statements (Form-V).

Critically, MPCB’s consent regime has nothing to do with food safety, food licensing, or fitness of food for human consumption. That domain belongs exclusively to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and the local Food Safety Department under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. An MPCB consent is a pollution-control clearance — it tells an industry how much waste it may generate, how it must be treated, and where it may be disposed. It is not, and cannot be treated as, a certificate of fitness for resale of any product, food or otherwise.

Part II: What This Specific Consent Says

The certificate in question (Consent No. MPCB/SROBH/G/CE/1901001445/15, dated 18/01/2019) tells a narrow and specific story:

1. The activity authorised was not food trading. It was: “Segregation and repacking of Paper and Plastic Scrap, Food Waste and Beverages empty tins from scrap” — capped at 700 Kg/Day. This is a scrap-recycling operation, not a food business.

2. Food waste had one lawful destination. Under the Non-Hazardous Solid Wastes table, “Food Waste” — 100 Kg/Day — was permitted to be sold only for disposal as piggery/tabela (cattle shed) feed. Nowhere does the consent contemplate food waste, expired stock, or scrap food material being repacked and reintroduced into the human retail or e-commerce supply chain. Any such use would fall entirely outside the scope of what MPCB certified.

3. The consent expired on 31 August 2019. The document is unambiguous: “The Consent to Operate is granted for a period up to: 31/08/2019.” That is over six years before the date of this report. Condition (vii) of the certificate expressly required the applicant to “make an application for renewal of the consent at least 60 days before the date of expiry.” No renewal certificate has been produced or verified in connection with this matter. If M/s. R K Traders has continued operations beyond August 2019 without a renewed consent, that in itself is a violation of Sections 25/26 of the Water Act and Section 21 of the Air Act — independent of any food-safety question.

4. The certificate itself disclaims broader legitimacy. Condition 11 states plainly: “This consent shall not be construed as any exemption from obtaining necessary No Objection Certificate from the Govt. agencies as may deemed fit necessary.” In other words, even at the height of its validity, this document could never have substituted for an FSSAI licence, a food business registration, or any other statutory clearance required to deal in food products.

Part III: The Investigative Question

The concern this report raises is not academic. If an expired, narrowly-scoped MPCB scrap-segregation consent — one that authorised only diversion of food waste to animal feed, not human resale — is being pointed to, cited, or displayed as if it provides regulatory cover for a food-adjacent business, three distinct failures are implicated simultaneously:

1. A lapsed pollution-control consent being operated under, in apparent breach of the Water Act and Air Act;
2. A category error deliberately or negligently exploited — a waste-management clearance being conflated with food-safety authorisation, when the two are governed by entirely separate statutes and regulators;
3. A potential missing link in the Amazon India expired-food investigation (FIR No. 277/2026) — if scrap/repacking entities in Bhiwandi’s supply chain are where returned, damaged, or expired stock is being processed and re-routed, this consent (or the absence of a valid one) becomes directly relevant evidence of the mechanics of that alleged operation.

This publication is not yet in a position to assert a confirmed operational link between M/s. R K Traders and the specific expired-food sales under investigation. That connection — if it exists — is a matter for the investigating agencies, MPCB’s own enforcement wing, and the courts to establish. What this document does establish, on its face, is that no valid, current MPCB consent existed at this address for any activity as of the date of writing, and that even when the consent was current, it never authorised what appears to be alleged.

Part IV: Questions That Must Be Answered

In the interest of accountability journalism, The ChangeMakers Magazine puts the following questions on record to MPCB, SRO Bhiwandi, and the concerned civic and food-safety authorities:

1. Has M/s. R K Traders applied for or been granted renewal of Consent No. MPCB/SROBH/G/CE/1901001445/15 at any point after 31 August 2019? If not, why has no enforcement action been recorded against continued operation on a lapsed consent?
2. What inspections, if any, has SRO Bhiwandi conducted at this premises since 2019, and what were the findings on actual waste handling practices — particularly regarding the “food waste” stream?
3. Does FSSAI or the local Food Safety Department have any registration or licence on record for this premises or its proprietors? If not, on what basis — if any — has food-related material been handled, repacked, or moved from this address?
4. Is there any documented or alleged connection between this premises and the expired-food materials subject to FIR No. 277/2026, and has the investigating agency sought MPCB’s records as part of that probe?
5. What is BNCMC’s record of trade licensing for this premises, and is it consistent with the activity actually being carried out?

Conclusion

An MPCB Consent to Establish and Operate is a technical, narrowly-scoped environmental clearance — not a general licence to trade, and least of all a certificate of fitness for food resale. When such a document is lapsed by over six years and is nonetheless in apparent circulation as a badge of legitimacy, the burden falls on the regulator, the investigating agency, and the local civic body to establish exactly what has been operating at that address, under what authority, and to what end. The ChangeMakers Magazine will continue to pursue responses from MPCB, SRO Bhiwandi, BNCMC, and FSSAI on the questions raised above, and will report developments as they emerge.

This is a developing investigation. The ChangeMakers Magazine invites MPCB, SRO Bhiwandi, and the concerned parties to respond; any response received will be published in full alongside future updates to this report.

The ChangeMakers Magazine | ISSN 2583-1844 | RNI No. MAHENG/2021/79911 | thechangemakers.news