CPCB Tyre EPR Lawyer

If your unit or project faces an issue of battery and tyre EPR compliance, this guide explains your obligations, your options and the time limits that matter. Legals365 is the legal platform of Advocate B.K. Singh and associates, who appear before pollution control boards, the NGT and the courts.

In short. Battery EPR comes from the Battery Waste Management Rules 2022, and tyre EPR from Schedule IX of the Hazardous and Other Wastes Rules 2016. Manufacturers, importers and brand owners must register on the CPCB portal, meet yearly recycling targets by buying EPR certificates from registered recyclers, and file returns. Shortfalls attract environmental compensation, and the obligation still carries forward.

Extended producer responsibility, or EPR, means the business that puts a battery or a tyre on the Indian market has to pay for what happens to it at the end of its life. In practice that is a paperwork obligation with real money behind it: registration on the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) portal, a yearly target worked out from your past sales or imports, EPR certificates bought from registered recyclers to meet that target, and returns filed on time. Miss any of these and CPCB can levy environmental compensation, suspend your registration or stop you from selling.

This page explains who counts as a producer under each set of rules, how targets and certificates work, what returns are due, what a CPCB or state board notice usually alleges, and how to answer it or challenge it. It also covers the businesses that are not producers but still hold waste batteries and tyres, such as fleet operators, factories, ports, hospitals and real estate developers, because many of them get drawn into EPR questions through imports or through the people they sell their scrap to.

Law

Battery Waste Management Rules 2022 (amended in 2023, 2024 and 2025); Hazardous and Other Wastes (Management and Transboundary Movement) Rules 2016, Schedule IX on waste tyres (inserted in July 2022); Environment (Protection) Act 1986, sections 5 and 15.

Who must comply

Producers (manufacturers, importers and brand owners of batteries or new tyres, and importers of vehicles or equipment fitted with them), recyclers, refurbishers of batteries and retreaders of tyres.

Authority

CPCB runs the centralised EPR portals, sets out guidelines and levies environmental compensation; state pollution control boards and committees authorise recycling units and inspect them.

Time limits

Registration before placing products on the market; quarterly and annual returns on the portal by the dates fixed in the rules and CPCB notices; appeals to the National Green Tribunal generally within 30 days of the order, extendable by up to 60 days.

Documents

Registration certificate, sales and import data by category and weight, customs bills of entry, EPR certificates and recycler invoices, filed returns, CPCB notices and replies, contracts with collection agents and recyclers.

What battery and tyre EPR means in practice

EPR is a target you have to meet every year, measured in weight, and proved through certificates. You do not usually collect the old batteries or tyres yourself. A registered recycler processes waste, the CPCB portal credits that recycler with EPR certificates for the quantity processed, and you buy enough certificates to cover your obligation. The portal then matches what you bought against what you owe.

That sounds mechanical, and most months it is. The trouble starts in three places: when the sales or import figure behind the target is wrong, when the certificates you bought turn out to be invalid, and when a business does not realise it is a producer at all. Almost every CPCB notice we see traces back to one of those three. The rest of this page is organised around them.

The two regimes run on similar lines but are not the same. Batteries have their own rules with categories, recovery percentages and recycled content requirements. Tyres sit inside the hazardous waste rules in a separate schedule, with targets linked to the weight of new tyres sold two years earlier. A company that sells vehicles may have obligations under both, and also under the e-waste EPR rules for any electronics fitted in them.

The rules that apply

Who is a producer under the battery rules

A producer under the Battery Waste Management Rules is anyone who makes batteries and sells them, sells batteries made by someone else under its own brand, imports batteries, or imports equipment that contains batteries. The last limb catches a lot of businesses that never think of themselves as battery companies. An importer of laptops, power tools, solar inverters, UPS systems, forklifts, medical devices or electric scooters is a battery producer for the batteries inside.

Categories matter because targets and recovery percentages differ. A lead acid battery in a car is automotive; the same chemistry in a telecom tower backup is industrial; a lithium battery in a phone is portable; a traction battery in an electric two-wheeler or car is an electric vehicle battery. Getting the category wrong in registration means the wrong target, and CPCB tends to notice when sales data does not match the declared category.

Dealers and retailers are not producers merely because they sell batteries, though producers often use them as take-back points in their collection arrangements, and waste they collect must go to producers or registered recyclers. Refurbishers who repair used batteries for second life also register and can generate certificates under the rules. A business that only uses batteries, such as a hospital with inverter banks or a housing society with a backup system, is a consumer. Its duty is to dispose of waste batteries through the proper channel, not to file EPR returns.

Who is a producer under the tyre rules

Under Schedule IX a producer is a person who makes new tyres and sells them in India, sells new tyres under its own brand even if someone else made them, imports new tyres, imports vehicles fitted with new tyres, or imports waste tyres. Vehicle makers who import tyres to fit on vehicles they sell in India are producers for those imported tyres. Tyres a producer exports do not carry an EPR obligation in India.

The obligation is measured by weight. From 2024-25 onwards, a producer's target in any year is 100 percent of the weight of new tyres it made or imported two years earlier. The earlier years were phased: 35 percent in 2022-23 and 70 percent in 2023-24, each on the figure from two years back. A unit set up after April 2022 gets a two-year gap before its first obligation. An importer of waste tyres has a target equal to what it imported in the previous year.

A company that runs a truck fleet, a mine, a port or a construction business does not become a tyre producer by buying tyres in India and wearing them out. It is a generator of waste tyres. What it must watch is who takes those tyres away. Selling them to an unregistered dealer who burns them in a kiln or sends them to an illegal pyrolysis unit can bring the business into a state board inquiry, even though the EPR target is someone else's.

If you are not a producer: factories, ports, real estate and other users

Most page visitors searching for battery or tyre EPR help are not tyre companies or battery makers. They run a paper mill, a steel plant, a warehouse, a hospital, a port terminal or a building project, and someone has told them EPR applies. Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not, and the first job is to work out which.

Ask three questions. Did you import any battery, any equipment containing a battery, any vehicle, or any tyre in your own name during the last few years? Do you sell any product under your own brand that contains a battery? Do you sell waste batteries or tyres, and to whom? If the answer to the first two is no, you are a user, and your obligations are about disposal: hand waste batteries to a registered recycler, refurbisher or the producer's collection system, and sell waste tyres only to registered recyclers or retreaders. Keep the invoices and the recycler's registration details.

If you did import machinery with batteries, such as forklifts, material handling equipment, medical equipment or backup systems, check whether the supplier or a local distributor was the importer on record. The bill of entry decides it. Where your company was the importer, you may be a producer for that quantity and may need to register, even if it was a one-off purchase. This is a common surprise for infrastructure and real estate businesses that import plant directly. It is easier to register and file late than to explain an unregistered import after a CPCB data match.

Battery EPR and tyre EPR side by side

Registering on the CPCB EPR portal

Battery and tyre registrations are made on separate CPCB portals, but the process runs along the same lines.

1. Confirm your role and category

   Decide if your business is a producer, recycler, refurbisher or retreader, and for batteries which categories you deal in. An entity that falls in more than one role registers separately for each. Write down the basis for the decision, because a later notice will ask for it.

2. Collect the company documents

   You will need the certificate of incorporation or firm registration, PAN, GST registration, importer exporter code if you import, authorised signatory details and board resolution, and for recyclers the consent to operate and authorisation from the state pollution control board.

3. Compile past quantities

   Targets are worked out from earlier years, so the portal asks for historical sales and imports by weight and category. Use your audited figures, customs data and GST returns, and reconcile them before you upload. Mismatched figures are the single biggest source of later trouble.

4. Apply, pay and answer queries

   Submit the application with the prescribed government fee. CPCB often raises queries on category, weight conversion or missing documents. Answer within the time given, with documents rather than explanations.

5. Display and label

   Once registered, show the EPR registration number on batteries, packaging or product brochures in the manner the rules allow, including through a barcode or QR code under the 2025 amendment. Tyre producers keep the registration current and renew it when due.

Registration is not compliance. It only opens the account against which targets, certificates and returns are later tallied.

How targets are calculated, and where the numbers go wrong

Your target is only as good as the figure behind it. For tyres it is the weight of new tyres you sold or imported two years back. For batteries it is the quantity placed on the market in earlier years, category by category, multiplied by the percentage the rules set for the current year. A small error in the base year multiplies through every later year.

The errors we see most often are simple. Units are converted to weight using a wrong standard weight. Batteries fitted in imported equipment are left out because the import was booked as machinery. Stock transfers between group companies are counted twice. Exports are not deducted, or deducted without proof. Each of these produces either an inflated target, which costs you money in certificates, or an understated one, which CPCB will eventually catch by matching your data with customs and GST records.

If you discover an error after filing, correct it through the portal's revision route or a written request to CPCB with supporting documents, before a notice arrives. A voluntary correction reads very differently from one made after the board points it out. When Advocate B.K. Singh reviews an EPR file, the first thing he asks for is the reconciliation between the registration data, the customs bills of entry and the GST sales figures, because that is the same comparison CPCB runs.

EPR certificates: buying them and checking them

An EPR certificate is a portal entry, generated when a registered recycler records that it has processed a given quantity of waste into a permitted end product. You buy certificates from recyclers, the transfer is recorded on the portal, and the certificates are set off against your target. Prices are negotiated, but for batteries the rules now fix a floor and a ceiling linked to the environmental compensation rate, so a certificate cannot be sold for less or more than that band. Check the current notification for the exact band.

The risk is not price but validity. If a recycler generated certificates beyond its authorised capacity, without real feedstock, or for an end product that does not qualify, CPCB can cancel those certificates after an inquiry. When that happens, the producer who bought them loses the credit and is back in shortfall, sometimes for an earlier year. The rules treat the target as the producer's own obligation, so the producer has to make good the shortfall and then pursue the recycler for its money.

Protect yourself before you buy. Check the recycler's registration on the portal and its consent and authorisation from the state board. Compare its capacity with the volume of certificates it is selling. Ask for proof of feedstock purchase and end product sales. Write a contract that obliges the recycler to replace or refund cancelled certificates, and keep part of the payment back until the year is closed. Our page on commercial contracts covers how such clauses are drafted.

Returns, records and the annual cycle

Producers file quarterly and annual returns on the portal. For tyres, quarterly returns are due by the end of the month after the quarter, and recyclers also report monthly on waste processed, end products made and certificates sold. For batteries, producers file an annual return for the previous financial year by the date in the rules, which CPCB has extended more than once, and recyclers and refurbishers file their own returns. Check the portal notices each year rather than relying on last year's date.

A return is a statement on oath in all but name. It should match your books, your customs data and the certificates in your account. Do not file a return showing the target as met if the certificates have not yet been transferred, hoping to complete the purchase later. The portal timestamps everything, and a return that does not match the ledger is the easiest violation for CPCB to prove.

Keep records for at least the period the rules specify, and in practice for longer, because CPCB inquiries can reach back several years. Store the recycler contracts, invoices, transfer records, correspondence about corrections, and every notice and reply in one place. For producers who also have plastic packaging EPR or other EPR obligations, one compliance calendar for all of them avoids missed dates.

Documents to keep ready for an EPR file

• EPR registration certificate, application and all query replies
• Board resolution or authority letter for the person who operates the portal account
• Year-wise sales and import data by category and weight, with the method used to convert units to weight
• Customs bills of entry for batteries, tyres, vehicles and equipment containing batteries
• GST returns and audited accounts for the base years used in the target
• Proof of exports, such as shipping bills, where quantities were deducted
• Contracts, invoices and payment proof for EPR certificates bought, with the recycler's registration and state board authorisation
• Portal ledger showing certificates transferred and set off
• Quarterly and annual returns filed, with acknowledgements
• Every CPCB or state board notice, your reply and proof of delivery
• For users and generators: invoices and challans showing sale of waste batteries or tyres to registered recyclers, refurbishers or retreaders

Environmental compensation for shortfalls

When a producer misses its target, CPCB levies environmental compensation on the shortfall, worked out under its guidelines from the quantity not covered and a rate per tonne. The compensation is not a substitute for compliance. The unmet target is carried forward, so you pay the compensation and still have to buy the certificates later. The same applies to recyclers who fail recovery percentages or file false returns.

Environmental compensation is also levied for operating without registration, selling through unregistered entities, false information in returns, and for recyclers, processing beyond authorised capacity. The amounts can be large because they run per tonne across several years. A demand of this kind is a civil liability imposed by the board, separate from any penalty an adjudicating officer may impose under section 15 of the Environment (Protection) Act.

A demand can be challenged on the quantity, on the rate, on whether the shortfall really existed (for instance where certificates were transferred but not credited), and on procedure, such as a demand issued without a hearing. Our page on challenging environmental compensation demands explains the grounds in more detail.

Responding to a CPCB or state board EPR notice

Notices usually allege non-registration, a target shortfall, a data mismatch, or invalid certificates. The response works the same way in each case.

1. Read what is actually alleged

   Separate the allegation from the proposed action. A notice may allege a shortfall for one year but propose suspension of registration or compensation for several. Note the reply date and whether a personal hearing is offered.

2. Pull the data and reconcile it

   Before you write anything, reconcile the figures in the notice with your registration data, returns, customs and GST records and the portal ledger. Many notices are based on a mismatch that has an innocent explanation, such as exports, returns or a category error.

3. Fix what can be fixed now

   If there is a genuine shortfall, buying valid certificates before the reply goes in shows good faith and often changes the outcome on compensation. If registration is missing, apply immediately. Do not wait for the hearing to cure a defect you can cure today.

4. Reply in writing with documents

   Answer each allegation in order, attach the documents, ask for a personal hearing, and ask for copies of any material the board relies on that you have not seen. Keep the tone factual. A reply that argues the rules are unfair rarely helps at this stage.

5. Attend the hearing and follow up

   At the hearing, carry the reconciliation in a simple table. After the hearing, send a short written note of what was said and any further documents promised. If an adverse order follows, calendar the appeal date at once.

For notices issued by a state board rather than CPCB, the approach is the same; our page on replying to state pollution control board notices covers the board-specific practice.

Challenging a final order

If CPCB or a state board passes a final order cancelling registration, directing you to stop sales, or imposing environmental compensation, there are usually three routes. The first is a representation or review request to the authority itself, which is worth trying where the order rests on a factual error that a document can correct. It does not stop the appeal clock, so do not let it run past the limitation date.

The second is an appeal to the National Green Tribunal. Directions issued under section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act are appealable under section 16(g) of the NGT Act within 30 days, extendable by 60 days. Disputes about environmental compensation and implementation of the rules can also come before the tribunal under section 14. The Principal Bench sits in New Delhi, and zonal benches sit in Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai. An appeal from the tribunal lies to the Supreme Court within 90 days under section 22.

The third is a writ petition in the High Court under Article 226, for example in the Delhi High Court, where the order is without jurisdiction, passed without a hearing, or where the challenge is to the validity of a rule or guideline itself. High Courts usually expect you to use the tribunal route where it is available, so a writ needs a clear reason. Penalties imposed by an adjudicating officer under section 15 have their own appeal route, which the order itself will state.

Common mistakes in battery and tyre EPR

• Not realising you are a producer. Importers of equipment with batteries and importers of vehicles with tyres are producers. The obligation exists whether or not you registered.
• Using an unverified base figure. A target built on rough sales numbers will be wrong every year after. Reconcile with customs and GST first.
• Buying the cheapest certificates. Certificates from a recycler selling far beyond its capacity are the ones most likely to be cancelled later, leaving you back in shortfall.
• Filing returns ahead of certificate transfers. The portal ledger and the return must match on the filing date.
• Paying compensation and stopping there. The unmet target carries forward. Budget for the certificates as well.
• Ignoring the user-side duties. A factory or fleet owner that sells waste batteries or tyres to unregistered dealers can face state board action even though it has no EPR target.
• Letting the appeal date pass while writing representations. A representation does not extend the 30-day appeal period.

Recyclers, refurbishers and retreaders

The certificate system depends on recyclers, and the rules put heavy duties on them. A battery recycler needs consent and authorisation from the state board under the hazardous waste rules, registration on the CPCB portal, and must meet the minimum recovery percentages for each material. Those percentages rise over time: for portable and electric vehicle batteries they move from 70 percent towards 90 percent by 2026-27, and for automotive and industrial batteries from 50 percent towards 60 percent.

A tyre recycler can generate certificates only for the listed end products and only up to its authorised capacity. Recyclers producing pyrolysis oil or char face the closest scrutiny, because state boards and the tribunal have repeatedly acted against pyrolysis units that operate without proper pollution controls. A recycler whose consent lapses or whose unit is closed by the state board cannot keep generating certificates, and buyers should check consent status before each purchase.

Retreaders register separately. A retreading certificate lets a tyre producer defer part of its obligation by one year, but the obligation comes back when the retreaded tyre reaches end of life and must then be met through a registered recycler. If you run a recycling unit and receive a closure or suspension notice from the state board, the EPR consequences follow immediately, and our page on hazardous waste authorisation covers the authorisation side.

How the work differs by industry and by state

The rules are central, so the obligations are the same whether the company sits in Delhi, Chennai, Pune or Ludhiana. What changes from state to state is the recycler side, which depends on the state board's consent and authorisation practice, and the inspection side, which depends on how active the board is. A producer selling nationally will usually buy certificates from recyclers in several states, and each one's state board record is worth checking.

Industry changes the questions. Automobile and two-wheeler companies face battery, tyre and e-waste obligations at once. Electronics importers mostly face battery EPR through the batteries inside equipment. Tyre makers and tyre importers face the largest tyre targets, and also deal with retreaders. Heavy industry, mining, ports, hospitals and construction firms are mostly generators and users, unless they import equipment directly. Their exposure is in disposal and in the occasional direct import.

Group structures add another layer. Where one company imports and another sells under the brand, both may meet the definition, and the group should decide in writing which entity registers for which quantity so that the same batteries are not counted twice or not at all. For listed companies, EPR shortfalls and compensation demands can also be disclosure items under BRSR and ESG reporting.

What to do this week

If you cannot tell if your company is a producer, pull the last three years of bills of entry and check for batteries, equipment with batteries, vehicles and tyres imported in your company's name. That single exercise answers the question in most cases. If you are registered, download your portal ledger and compare it with your filed returns and your books for the last two years, and note any difference.

If a notice has arrived, write down the reply date and the appeal date that would apply if an adverse order follows. Do not buy certificates in a hurry from the first recycler who calls; check its capacity and authorisation first. If the notice alleges invalid certificates, write to the recycler at once and ask for proof of feedstock and processing.

In EPR notices that reach Advocate B.K. Singh's office, the weak point is usually not the law but the numbers, and a clean reconciliation often narrows the dispute to a fraction of the original demand. If you want the papers checked before you reply, the team of Advocate B.K. Singh at Legals365 can review them and tell you the next step through our talk to a lawyer page.

Dealing with the CPCB

The Central Pollution Control Board is the national pollution regulator. It was constituted under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974 and works under the Air Act 1981 as well, with powers delegated under the Environment (Protection) Act 1986. It sets standards, coordinates and guides the state pollution control boards, resolves disputes between them, and runs the national monitoring networks for air and water quality. For day-to-day consents an industry deals with its state board or, in Delhi, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee, but the CPCB decides much of what those consents demand.

Three of its functions matter most to businesses. First, it classifies industries into red, orange, green and white categories, which decides how strict the consent regime is and how often a unit is inspected. Second, it can issue directions, including closure or stopping power and water supply, under section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act, and it can direct state boards under section 18 of the Water and Air Acts. Third, it runs the centralised portals for extended producer responsibility under the rules on plastic packaging, e-waste, batteries, tyres and used oil, where producers, importers and brand owners register, file returns and buy or generate EPR certificates.

EPR enforcement has become a frequent source of notices. A brand owner that has not registered, has under-reported the quantity placed on the market, or has not met its recycling targets can face environmental compensation calculated under CPCB guidelines and suspension of registration. Recyclers and processors face scrutiny of the certificates they issue, and the CPCB has cancelled registrations where it found fake or inflated claims. Keeping sales data, invoices and recycler certificates consistent is the main defence.

The CPCB also appears often as a party or technical adviser in litigation. The NGT regularly appoints joint committees with the CPCB and the state board to inspect sites and report, and in Delhi NCR the CPCB works alongside the Commission for Air Quality Management on dust, industrial fuel and vehicle norms. Its flying squads inspect industries in the NCR and report violations. Industries in the seventeen highly polluting categories must connect online monitoring systems to CPCB servers, and data from those systems frequently forms the basis of a notice.

A notice or direction from the CPCB should be answered in writing within the time given, with data, photographs and a compliance plan. Directions and compensation orders can be challenged before the NGT or, where the complaint is about lack of hearing or jurisdiction, before the High Court in a writ. Ignoring the notice and waiting for the state board to sort it out rarely works.

Frequently asked questions

Who needs battery EPR registration in India?

Anyone who manufactures batteries, sells batteries under its own brand, imports batteries, or imports equipment containing batteries needs to register as a producer on the CPCB portal. Recyclers and refurbishers also register. Businesses that only use batteries do not register as producers but must dispose of waste batteries through registered channels.

Does a company importing vehicles need tyre EPR registration?

Yes. Schedule IX treats an importer of vehicles fitted with new tyres as a producer for those tyres. The importer has to register on the CPCB tyre EPR portal and meet targets based on the weight of tyres imported.

What is the tyre EPR target for 2025-26?

From 2024-25 onwards, the target for a year is 100 percent of the weight of new tyres the producer made or imported two years earlier. So the 2025-26 target is based on 2023-24 quantities. Check the current rules and CPCB guidance in case of later amendments.

Can I meet my EPR target by collecting waste batteries myself?

Yes, a producer can set up its own collection system, but the waste must be processed by registered recyclers or refurbishers and the quantities recorded on the portal. Most producers find it simpler to buy EPR certificates. Either way, the proof that counts is the portal record.

What happens if CPCB cancels the EPR certificates I bought?

The credit for those certificates is withdrawn, and your target for that period is treated as unmet again. You will need to buy replacement certificates and may face environmental compensation. Your remedy against the recycler depends on your contract, so a replacement or refund clause matters.

Is paying environmental compensation enough to close an EPR shortfall?

No. Environmental compensation is levied for the failure, but the unmet obligation is carried forward. You still have to meet it in later years by buying certificates.

Is there a minimum and maximum price for battery EPR certificates?

Yes. Amendments to the Battery Waste Management Rules fixed a floor and a ceiling price for EPR certificates, linked to the environmental compensation rate. Check the current notification for the exact band before negotiating.

Our factory sells used batteries to a scrap dealer. Is that a problem?

It can be. Waste batteries should go to registered recyclers, refurbishers or the producer's collection system, and a state board can act if they end up with an unregistered dealer. Check the buyer's registration and keep the invoices.

Where do I appeal against a CPCB EPR order?

Directions under section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act can be appealed to the National Green Tribunal within 30 days, extendable by up to 60 days for sufficient cause. In some cases, such as an order passed without jurisdiction, a writ petition in the High Court is possible. The order itself often states the remedy.

Do I need a lawyer to file EPR returns?

Not usually. Returns are filed by your compliance team or a consultant on the portal. A lawyer becomes useful when there is a notice, a data dispute, a cancelled certificate, a compensation demand or an appeal.

Are retreaded tyres counted towards tyre EPR?

Retreading certificates from registered retreaders let a producer defer part of its obligation by one year. The deferred quantity has to be met later through a registered recycler when the tyre reaches end of life.

Does battery EPR apply to electric vehicle batteries?

Yes. Electric vehicle batteries are a separate category under the Battery Waste Management Rules 2022, with their own targets. Vehicle makers and importers of electric vehicles or their battery packs are producers for those batteries.

Is the CPCB or the state board responsible for my factory's consent?

The state pollution control board, or the DPCC in Delhi, issues consent to establish and operate. The CPCB sets the standards and categories, runs the EPR portals and can issue directions directly, especially to highly polluting units or after its own inspections.

What is EPR registration with the CPCB?

Producers, importers and brand owners of plastic packaging, electronic goods, batteries and certain other products must register on the CPCB's EPR portals and meet yearly collection or recycling targets. Failure to register or to meet targets can lead to environmental compensation and suspension of registration.