Mayor thinks well to clear waste backlog

Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 16

With Dadu Majra-based Jaypee’s waste-processing plant having failed to clear a huge backlog of garbage kept there, Mayor Asha Kumari Jaswal has come up with a new plan. After exhausting all its efforts with the firm, which has also failed to follow the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) guidelines, Jaswal has taken to the traditional practice of digging a well and disposing of waste in it.      

“I have asked the MC’s medical officer of health (MoH) to dig a well at the back of the dumping ground and put the waste kept at the plant into that. After covering the well with soil, we will beautify the area by planting saplings on it. Following this, the plant will be able to process the city’s complete waste and only inert (the waste residue) will be dumped in the ground. Inert produces no foul smell,” the Mayor said.

“I yesterday visited the site and got a major area of the dumping ground levelled. Besides, medicine was sprayed to ward off smell affecting the local residents. I checked the plant too. The processing is going very slow. A huge waste backlog is still lying there. Besides, the firm is only able to process around 250 or 300 metric tonne per day while the city generates around 450 metric tonne daily,” she added.

In-charge of the firm NK Bhora did not answer phone calls made by this correspondent for his comment.    

The company has neither processed 5,000 metric tonne waste lying inside the plant in the past over three weeks nor made compost plant functional as per the guidelines of the tribunal. The MC had extended the three-week deadline by another 10 days but the firm still failed to process the whole waste.

 During a visit to the area, The Tribune team came across pigs, dogs, cats and eagles feeding on waste lying on the dumping ground which is situated close to a residential area. The local residents say foul smell emanating from the waste has made their life miserable. A few days ago, several bikers had skidded on the waste that got scattered on to the road.