EPR Compliance in India: A Practical Guide for Producers, Importers and Business Owners

By Ujjwal Sharma MCIArb, Sharma Kemp Chambers

Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR, has a way of arriving in a business unannounced. A packaging manager mentions a portal registration. A customer’s procurement team asks for an EPR certificate. A marketplace delists a product listing until compliance is shown. Then, somewhere in the following quarter, a finance director discovers that a regulatory obligation nobody budgeted for now has a tonnage target attached, and a penalty regime behind it.

I advise businesses on EPR from both ends: companies building a compliance programme from scratch, and companies that have been told they are behind and want to know how bad it is. The pattern is consistent. Almost none of the exposure comes from deliberate evasion. It comes from uncertainty about whether the rules apply at all, which category a product falls into, and who in the supply chain actually carries the obligation.

This guide explains how EPR works in India, which regimes matter most, what the obligations look like in practice, where the enforcement risk sits, and how to set up compliance so that it holds up under scrutiny. It is written for founders, in-house counsel, compliance heads and the packaging and sustainability teams who usually inherit the problem.

What EPR Actually Means

The principle is simple. A business that places a product on the market is made responsible for the waste that product eventually becomes. In India, that responsibility is imposed through rules made under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, and it is delivered mainly through a centralised, online system run by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), with State Pollution Control Boards and Pollution Control Committees as the regional regulators.

In practice, EPR obliges producers, importers and brand owners to register, to meet annual targets for collection and recycling (or, in some regimes, recycled content and reuse), to prove that compliance through EPR certificates bought from or generated by registered recyclers, and to file returns. There is no manufacturing or collection operation that can be avoided by saying the product is “someone else’s waste”. If your brand is on the product, the obligation follows it.

Which Regimes Apply to Your Business?

EPR in India is not a single law. It is a family of separate rule sets, each with its own definitions, targets and portal. Many businesses are covered by more than one.

The table is a starting map, not a conclusion. The definition of “producer” differs from rule to rule, and the practical question for any particular product is usually answered by reading the definition against the actual supply chain, not by the industry the business thinks it belongs to.

Plastic Packaging EPR

Plastic packaging EPR is the regime that reaches the widest range of businesses, because almost any business that sells a packaged product is, at some point, a brand owner.

Who Is Covered

PIBOs are producers (who manufacture plastic packaging), importers (of packaging or of packaged goods) and brand owners (who market goods in packaging, including e-commerce and retail businesses selling under their own brand). The CPCB’s published FAQs make clear that PIBOs must register on the centralised EPR portal, and that a PIBO operating in one or two States registers with the relevant State Board, while one operating in more than two registers with the CPCB. Micro and small brand owners are exempt from EPR obligations, as are export-oriented units, but eligibility for each exemption turns on definitions that should be checked against the facts rather than assumed.

The Four Categories

Plastic packaging is divided into four categories, and the targets differ for each.

What the Obligations Look Like

For each year, a PIBO has to account for the plastic it placed on the market, and the system then works through targets of several kinds. Collection and end-of-life disposal targets have applied for some time. The more demanding recent additions are minimum recycled content in packaging and reuse obligations for certain rigid packaging, both of which rise year by year. The 2026 amendment, discussed below, has made the recycled content and reuse trajectory explicit and added a limited carry-forward for food-contact packaging.

I would deliberately not set out a full year-by-year target table in an article like this one. The numbers are set out in the schedules to the guidelines and the rules, they differ by category and pack size, and they have been amended. Anyone using them for a compliance plan should work from the current text on the CPCB portal.

Fees and Certificates

Registration involves fees that scale with the quantity of plastic waste generated. The CPCB’s published FAQs show PIBO application fees of ₹10,000 for under 1,000 tonnes per annum, ₹20,000 for 1,000 to 10,000 tonnes, and ₹50,000 above 10,000 tonnes, with renewal fees equal to registration fees and an annual processing fee of 25 per cent of the application fee. Compliance is demonstrated through EPR certificates, which are issued by the portal to registered recyclers and processors against verified recycling. A PIBO buys certificates in the quantity needed to meet its obligation. A PIBO that recycles in-house must document its transactions properly.

E-Waste EPR

The E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022 are built around a certificate system tied to the recovery of materials rather than to tonnes of waste in the abstract.

Who Is a Producer

A producer under the rules is anyone who manufactures and sells electrical and electronic equipment under its own brand, sells assembled equipment under its own brand using components from others, or sells imported equipment, components or spares. The CPCB’s FAQs stress that this applies irrespective of the selling channel, so dealers, retailers and e-retailers can be producers where they sell under their own brand or import the product. Registration is mandatory for any entity meeting the definition, and covers the equipment listed in Schedule I.

Targets and Certificates

The recycling obligation is calculated as a percentage of the waste a producer’s products are expected to generate. The CPCB’s published FAQs set it at 60 per cent for 2023-24 and 2024-25, 70 per cent for 2025-26 and 2026-27, and 80 per cent from 2027-28 onwards, with a different formula for new sellers and a 100 per cent obligation in respect of imported used equipment. EPR certificates are generated from recycled quantities of four end products, which are gold, copper, aluminium and iron, and a producer may buy certificates only from recyclers registered for the relevant category of equipment. The FAQs also describe a cap on how many certificates may be bought, so a producer cannot meet a compliance gap by over-buying.

Other Obligations

Beyond registration and targets, e-waste producers have to file returns and comply with limits on hazardous substances, set out in the rules and known as RoHS requirements. Bulk consumers of electronic equipment must hand over e-waste only to registered producers, recyclers or refurbishers, and refurbishers must themselves be registered on the portal and hold the appropriate consents. The practical consequence for businesses on the buying side is that disposal of old IT equipment is now a compliance step and not merely a facilities task.

Battery Waste EPR

The Battery Waste Management Rules, 2022 apply a similar certificate-based logic to batteries of all kinds, and they have been amended since. The system tracks metal-wise recovery, and a producer’s obligations are set by reference to the battery’s chemistry and type. Businesses that import batteries or sell products with batteries fitted, which includes electric vehicle and consumer electronics manufacturers, are the most likely to be surprised by their status as producers.

In September 2024, the CPCB issued guidelines on environmental compensation for violations of these rules. As reported at the time, they provide an escalating schedule of compensation for non-EPR defaults, starting at ₹20,000 for a first default, rising to ₹40,000 for a second and ₹80,000 for a third, together with interest on late payment of 12 per cent a year for up to a month and 24 per cent a year for between one and three months, and sterner action beyond that. The guidelines also provide for compensation for failure to meet the EPR targets themselves. Businesses should treat these as the starting point of the analysis rather than the full picture, because the amounts depend on the nature of the default and the battery category.

What Enforcement Actually Looks Like

Environmental Compensation

The distinctive feature of Indian EPR enforcement is environmental compensation, a charge levied under the polluter-pays principle, which is calculated by reference to the extent of the shortfall in a producer’s obligations and not by a fixed fine. Each regime has its own guidelines, rates and process. A producer that falls short will typically receive a notice, an opportunity to respond, and a demand. The practical lesson is that an unmet target has a cost, and that the cost can grow if the matter is not resolved.

Statutory Penalties

Separately, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 has been amended by the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2023, which came into force on 1 April 2024 and replaced the earlier criminal sanctions in this area with a system of administrative penalties. As summarised in recent commentary, Section 15 now allows penalties of up to ₹15 lakh, and Section 15A makes provision for company-specific penalties, with imprisonment now confined to failure to pay within a stated period. I would encourage readers to read the amended sections directly before relying on a summary, because the penalty structure and the interaction with environmental compensation continue to be debated.

Certificate Fraud

The credibility of the whole certificate system has been tested in public. In July 2024, the National Green Tribunal took suo motu cognisance of a news report alleging that some 6 lakh fake EPR certificates had been generated in connection with plastic recyclers in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka, and issued notice to the CPCB and the Ministry of Environment. The detail of what followed belongs to the proceedings, but the practical implication for a producer is clear. A certificate that is bought from a recycler whose operations cannot be verified is a compliance risk, not a compliance solution. Responsible producers now do diligence on the recyclers they buy from, including whether the recycler’s registration is current and whether its processing capacity could plausibly support the certificates it is selling.

The 2026 Plastic Amendment

On 31 March 2026, the Ministry notified the Plastic Waste Management (Amendment) Rules, 2026 as G.S.R. 237(E), following a draft published on 3 June 2025. They came into force on publication. According to published analyses of the amendment, the principal changes are as follows.

I would add a caution. Because this amendment is recent and several of its mechanisms, such as the importer certificate arrangement and the audit and verification guidelines, depend on further action by the CPCB, businesses should check the portal and the Gazette text for current operational detail rather than relying on secondary summaries, including this one.

Setting Up a Compliance Programme That Holds Up

The businesses that get through EPR scrutiny comfortably are not necessarily the largest or best resourced. They are the ones that have done four things.

They have mapped their status. For each product line, they know whether they are a producer, importer or brand owner under each regime, and have recorded the reasoning. This matters most for businesses with a mixed model, such as a brand that imports some products, manufactures others and sells on marketplaces.

They keep records that reconcile. Sales and import data, packaging specifications, quantities reported to the portal and certificates purchased should all tell the same story. Inconsistencies between what a company reports to the CPCB and what it reports in its tax and customs filings are an obvious place for a regulator to start asking questions.

They have a calendar. Registration renewals, annual and quarterly returns, certificate purchases and target milestones fall at different times under different regimes. A single compliance calendar, owned by a named person, prevents most of the avoidable defaults.

They do diligence on counterparties. That means checking recyclers’ registrations, capacity and certificate histories, and building contractual protection into the certificate purchase arrangements, including a right to terminate and recover the price if a certificate is later cancelled or found invalid.

Two Illustrative Scenarios

These are hypothetical examples, included to show how the rules interact in practice.

Scenario 1: The Direct-to-Consumer Brand

A growing consumer goods company sells through its own website and several marketplaces, using flexible plastic pouches for most of its range. It assumes that its contract manufacturer, which fills and packs the product, carries the EPR obligation. On review, it is the brand owner, and so a PIBO in its own right, with a registration to obtain, a category-wise obligation to calculate and a first return to file. The company registers, buys certificates from a recycler it has checked, and puts its packaging data into a reconciled record, avoiding a retrospective shortfall that would otherwise have been assessed against its first full year of sales.

Scenario 2: The Importer of Electronics

A company imports consumer electronics and sells them under another business’s brand through retail partners. It believes the brand owner is the producer. Reading the e-waste definition against its role as importer of the equipment, it concludes that it too falls within the definition, and that both entities should be registered. It resolves the point with the brand owner by agreement, allocating responsibility and recording who will buy the certificates, before the first quarterly return falls due.

A Practical Checklist

Conclusion

EPR compliance in India is neither as simple as a registration exercise nor as unmanageable as it can appear on a first reading. It is, at its core, a recurring accounting and verification obligation that attaches to a product’s life cycle, and it rewards businesses that treat it as a governance process with an owner, a calendar and a paper trail. The regulatory direction is clear: higher targets, closer scrutiny of certificates and more local enforcement. The sensible time to build the programme is before a notice arrives, not after.

Need Help With EPR Compliance?

For more information on how to establish whether EPR applies to your business, register on the portals, review your certificate purchasing arrangements, or respond to a notice or an environmental compensation demand, contact Ujjwal Sharma MCIArb at Sharma Kemp Chambers.