IOT Lifecycle Exposed: Regulatory Gaps from Deployment to Disposal

Introduction

“Cities advance with the wings of innovation, but stumble over mismanaged waste”

According to Office of Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, with an annual production of about 3.2 million tonnes (MT) of e-waste, of which 60% comes from metropolitan areas, India ranks as the third-largest producer of e-waste in the world. The blog underscores answers to questions like whether E-Waste Rules expressly apply to city-owned IoT infrastructure? Are Smart City SPVs legally accountable under environmental statutes? Do municipal laws assign disposal responsibility for waste from IOT or waste generated from digital infrastructure waste (by both public and private bodies)? The aforesaid questions shall be addressed by the end of this blog.

Liability Regime for SPVS

Although any SPV is accountable for fulfilling the goals established by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) but only if it serves as a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) or manages Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) on behalf of producers. If not, they are merely private organizations incorporated under the Companies Act of 2013 that replicate functions of and the inefficiencies of urban local councils. Such SPVs can only be sued for contractual liability towards the government on grounds of sub-standard performance or non-performance. They have been widely criticized as a measure under Smart Cities Mission 2025 because of their structure, resembling a private entity leading to regulatory problems of lack of transparency and functional inefficiency.

Management Digital Public Infrastructure of Smart Cities; Merely a Windbag

Rule 3(1)(b) r/w Rule 8 and Schedule I of E-Waste Management Rules, 2022, defines a bulk consumer and includes in its ambit government authorities deploying any digital infrastructure. Such authorities have been made responsible to ensure the smooth handover of all digital waste (EEW) for recycling/refurbishing only to designated producer. However, the bulk customers are not required to keep documentation, or submit yearly returns, or make inventories of e-waste according to the Mondaq analysis. IoT sensor networks and other networked digital infrastructure are not specifically taken into account. For city-owned electronic assets, there is no provision for lifecycle mapping and auditing from acquisition to operation to decommissioning. EEW may be disposed of by public authorities or SPVs without adhering to public data destruction regulations, because there are none in existence, raising grave concerns about privacy violations.

The smart city project was projected to be largely technology driven, and this brings in the question data availability, utilization of such data and expenditure. Most smart cities lack any municipal law for such e – waste management or even primary waste management. Although a challenge that is often overlooked is, for instance, of the disposal of non-functional cameras installed in different regions. Analyzing this through an example could involve “Indore” as a Smart City under the mission. Indore has no specific municipal law governing e-waste management by local bodies. For basic powers and responsibilities, the IMC (Indore Municipal Corporation) relies on Madhya Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act only which has no mention of the term E-waste or waste from IOT or digital infrastructure/EEW.

Way Ahead

Information from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs indicates that during the next 20 years, ₹39 billion (or ₹39.2 lakh crore at 2009–2010 prices) must be invested in urban infrastructure. It must be recognized that merely building infrastructure typically concentrating on augmentation while ignoring the distribution network and ignoring service management does not result in sustainable services and an improved urban environment. 

Smart cities have the potential to develop into pricey and exclusive gated communities if policymakers choose to see them as tiny havens on the outskirts of cities, most likely for practical reasons. The way the government would handle a smart city would need to be made clear. Does it have a constitutional mandate under an Act, such as Exclusive Economic Zones or Special Economic Zones, or is it just a functional city? Could they be subject to different laws, just as development corporations, industrial regions, and corridor zones? For several systems to be integrated, the roles and duties of the federal government, state governments, local governments, and the private sector must be carefully balanced, timely reviewed and auditing should be carried on by independent and transparent bodies.

By 2030, 40% of India’s population would permanently reside in urban areas. Furthermore, according to Chatterji and Mukkai, a major technological barrier is the fragmented nature of digital infrastructure both inside and across cities, as well as the different institutional capacities of specific cities to absorb and operationalize SOCs. They further assert that the lack of coherent data architectures further restricts their municipal data ecosystems, leading to fragmented pilot projects that find it difficult to scale or integrate with current legacy systems, and that smaller towns and cities face the biggest challenges because of the top-down control of state-level institutions over resources. Thus, there is a clear and convincing need for municipal level laws, clear enforcement mechanisms and independent but controllable bodies.