1. Short Title and Commencement. - (1) These rules may be called the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 2008.

(2) They shall come into force on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette.

2. Application. – (1) These rules shall apply to every manufacturer, importer, dealer, collection centre, refurbisher, dismantler, recycler,  auctioneer, consumer or bulk consumer involved in the manufacture, processing, sale, purchase of electrical and electronic equipments or components thereof excluding the fluorescent lamps and sodium lamps.

(2)   Further these rules shall not apply to the following:-

(a)  waste water and exhaust gases as covered under the provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 (6 of 1974) and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 (14 of 1981) respectively and rules made there under; 

(b) waste arising out of the normal operations from ships beyond five kilometers of the relevant baseline as covered under the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 (44 of 1958) and the rules made there under;

(c) radio-active wastes as covered  under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 (33 of 1962) and rules made there under, 

(d) hazardous wastes as covered under the Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989 made under the Act; 

(e) ozone depleting substances (ODS) as covered under the Ozone Depleting Substances (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000 made under the Act; and

(f) batteries as covered under the Batteries (Management and Handling) Rules, 2001 made under the Act.

3.   Definitions. - In these rules, unless the context otherwise requires, -

(a) \'Act\' means the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 (29 of 1986); 

(b) ‘applicant’ means any person or organization that applies in Form 1, for obtaining authorization to perform specific activities connected with the handling of e-waste;

(c) \'auction\' means bulk sale of used electrical electronic equipment or component(s) thereof by invitation of tenders or auction, contract or negotiation by individual(s), companies or Government Departments;

(d) \'authorization\' means permission for collection, storage, transportation, dismantling, recycling, treatment and disposal of e-waste granted by the agency designated by the government;

(e) \'bulk consumer\'  means bulk users of electrical and electronic equipments such as Central or State Government Departments, public sector undertakings, banks, private companies, multinational organizations and others that are registered under Factories Act, Companies Act or Societies Act, including the international agencies;3

(f) \'Central Pollution Control Board\' means the Central Pollution Control Board constituted under sub-section (1) of section 3 of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 (6 of 1974);

(g) \'collection centre\' means a centre established, individually or jointly by one or more producer(s), importer(s), refurbisher(s) and recycler(s) in pursuance of their responsibilities to collect e-waste and to channelize the same for reuse or refurbishment or recycling;

(h) \'consumer\' means any person using electrical and electronic equipments primarily for personal or home business use excluding the bulk consumers;

(i) \'dealer\'  means any person who sells and receives electrical or electronic equipments or components thereof to and from the consumers or other dealers or retailers on behalf of the producers or otherwise;

(j) \'dismantler\' means any person authorized to dismantle used electrical and electronic equipments into their components and to channelize these to registered recyclers without processing any of these components;

(k) \'dismantle\' means to disassemble any used electrical  and electronic equipment into its components;

(l) \'disposal\' means treatment and deposition of any residue generated after recycling and recovery of useful constituents or substances from e-waste;

(m) \'end-of-life management\' means all the activities involved in the management of post consumer or discarded electrical and electronic equipment, including collection, reuse, refurbishment, recycling, treatment and disposal; 

(n) \'environmentally sound management of  e-waste\' means taking all steps required to ensure that e-waste are managed in a manner which shall protect health and environment against any adverse effects which may result from such wastes;

(o) \'electrical and electronic equipment (EEE)\' means equipment which are dependent on electric currents or electro-magnetic fields to be fully functional including those used for the generation, transfer and measurement of such currents and fields;

(p) \'e-waste\' means waste electrical and electronic equipments, whole or in part, ,that are not fit for their intended use and are des tined for refurbishment, dismantling, recycling or disposal, it also includes scrap or rejects from the manufacturing process of electrical and electronic equipments and shall include but not be confined to the wastes listed in the Schedule-1 annexed to these rules;

(q) ‘extended producer responsibility‘ (EPR) means responsibility of any producer of electrical or electronic equipments, for their products beyond the place of manufacture to other phases of its life cycle, in particular, the collection and ‘end of life management’ of such products in an environmentally sound manner

(r) \'export\' with grammatical variations and cognate expressions, means taking out of India to a place outside India;

(s) \'facility\' means any location wherein the process incidental to the collection, reception, storage, dismantling, recycling, treatment and disposal of e-waste are carried out;

(t) \'Form\' means forms appended to these rules; 

(u) ‘historical waste’ means all available e-waste on the date these rules come into force.

(v) \'import\' with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions, means bringing into India from a place outside India;

(w) ‘individual producer responsibility’ (IPR) means the responsibility of producer for its own products through the products’ entire life cycle including the collection and ‘end-of-life management’ for its  own branded electrical or electronic equipments and its own branded historical waste

(x) \'manufacturer\'  in relation to any factory manufacturing/assembling electrical and electronic equipments (EEE) thereof means any person of the company who has control over the affairs of the factory or the premises for sale and collection of electrical and electronic equipments;

(y) ‘orphaned products’ means  non branded or assembled  products as well as those  produced by companies that have since closed the operations or stopped the product support;

(z) ‘producer’ means any person who, irrespective of the selling technique used;

(i)  manufactures and sells electrical and electronic equipments under his own brand; or

(ii) resells under his own brand, the electrical and electronic equipments produced by other suppliers; 

(iii) resells imported electrical and electronic equipments;