NEW DELHI, INDIA - INDIA faces a mounting challenge to dispose of an estimated 420,000 tonnes of electronic waste a year that it generates domestically and imports from abroad, a green lobby group said on Tuesday.

Priti Mahesh, senior programme officer with New Delhi-based Toxic Link, said there were no separate figures for e-waste generated by Indians and the amount imported, but the scale of the problem was growing.

'It is a major problem and growing at the rate of 10 to 15 per cent annually. We think by 2010, the e-waste in India will go up to 800,000 tonnes,' she told a conference on the subject in New Delhi.

Pollution control officials, who declined to give figures for the quantity of e-waste, said India had only six regular recycling units with an annual capacity of 27,000 tonnes.

The rapid advance of technology in mobile phones or televisions was behind the increase in waste, as well as increased demand from India's growing middle classes who see electronic appliances as important status symbols.

Most e-waste is dismantled by workers with bare hands that exposes them to carcinogenic metals including barium, lead, copper and cadmium, a study by the group showed.