SGPC urged to stop proposed project

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 7

While the Municipal Corporation is preparing to set up a solid waste management plant and the Mayor had officially announced that civil work on it would begin on April 13, an environmentalist has shot off a letter to the Chief Secretary of the SGPC to intervene and scuttle the project proposed at Bhagtanwala.

The reason cited by Prabhdyal Singh Randhawa was that this plant would damage the sheen of the holiest shrine of the Sikhs due to the poisonous gases emitted while processing the garbage.

Confirming this, SGPC chief secretary Harcharan Singh said the points raised by Randhawa would be taken up with the officials concerned of the pollution board instantly.

Randhawa, in his letter, pointed out the WHO’s report which testified to the increasing pollution around the Golden Temple, especially due to the rapidly increasing vehicular traffic, mushrooming of hotels and routine burning of the waste, among other factors.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) report says Amritsar is the ninth most polluted city in the country. The Municipal Corporation is going to establish a solid waste processing plant which is just 1.8 km away from the Golden Temple.

The plant near the Golden Temple will have a continuous impact on the shrine whereas nowhere in the country are the municipal solid waste dumps or any factory generating pollution allowed in residential areas. The case of Taj Mahal at Agra is an instance in the case for which the Mathura Refinery, located at a distance, was shut down to save this monument which is counted among the seven wonders of the world.

“In and around Agra, within a 25 km area, not even cow dung can be burnt as it emits a foul gas which could harm the marble of the Taj. If the Taj Mahal is India’s pride, so is the Golden Temple. I foresee that once this plant is set up at Bhagtanwala, there would be a routine burning of waste which would include plastics emanating noxious gases and methane, mercury from used tubes and CFL bulbs thrown in the dumpyard,” he said.

“We, as part of the Punjab Pollution Control Committee, had opposed this plant at Bhagtanwala and raised the matter in the High Court too, but the civic authorities managed to tilt the case in their favour by projecting a wrong picture that Bhagtanwala was a village whereas it houses a number of residential colonies falling in wards 37, 38 and 39. I have requested the SGPC to intervene and act to protect the grace of Golden Temple,” he said.