Discuss the role of the National Green Tribunal in filling regulatory gaps left by legislative inaction, with reference to floodplain governance.

Floodplain zoning — regulating land use in flood-prone river belts — remains India's most neglected non-structural flood measure. Despite a Model Bill circulated in 1975, only four States have legislated [1], leaving the National Green Tribunal (NGT), a statutory body under the NGT Act, 2010 [2], to convert this legislative vacuum into enforceable environmental obligations.

The regulatory gap in floodplain governance

• Water and flood management are State subjects (Entry 17, State List); the Centre can only advise, so the Model Bill stayed non-binding [1].
• Only Manipur, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and erstwhile J&K enacted floodplain zoning laws, and even there demarcation remains largely unexecuted [1].
• Central action stayed at guidance level — CWC technical guidelines and priority in Flood Management Programme funding for compliant States [3].

How the NGT fills the gap

• Continuing mandamus: NGT monitors floodplain demarcation through periodic compliance reports, as in the Yamuna floodplain matter in Delhi, pressing agencies on delayed 1:100-year flood mapping [4].
• Scrutiny of executive rule-making: it has sought the Centre's response on the amended Ganga floodplain rules, which redefine "active floodplain" by return periods and create regulatory and warning zones under the River Ganga Authorities Order, 2016 [5][4].
• Directions to States: NGT has pushed individual States to enact and operationalise floodplain zoning statutes, effectively substituting for absent legislation [4].
• Ecological grounding: it treats floodplains as flood buffers and groundwater recharge zones, aligning land-use control with the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 framework [5].

Limits

• Judicial orders cannot replace statutory zoning, budgets or survey capacity; enforcement depends on the same defaulting agencies, and case-by-case relief yields uneven national coverage.

The NGT has thus been a corrective institution, not a substitute legislature — its orders are most effective when they trigger executive follow-through. A binding national floodplain zoning framework, adopted cooperatively by States with CWC-backed hazard mapping and incentivised funding, would let the Tribunal return to adjudication. That shift would secure both Article 21's right to a healthy environment and SDG 11's goal of resilient, flood-safe cities.