Treat biodegradable waste on your own, hoteliers told

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, January 19

Hotels in the Dharamsala Municipal Corporation have been asked to manage their own biodegradable waste. The corporation has also decided that no new maps for hotels and commercial complexes would be passed in case there was no provision of treatment of biodegradable solid waste on the premises.

The hoteliers are opposing the decision. They are alleging that the corporation should not pass the onus of treating the solid waste on them.

Sanjeev Gandhi, general secretary of the Dharamsala Hotel and Restaurant Association, while talking The Tribune, said a plant to treat biodegradable waste comes at a cost of Rs 1.5 lakh. It would be a burden on small hoteliers of Dharamsala to maintain the plant. When the hoteliers were paying all other kinds of the taxes to the corporation, it was the duty of the corporation to provide them the facility for treatment of solid waste.

Ashwani Bamba, president of the Upper Dharamsala Hotel and Restaurant Association, said the hoteliers had discussed the issue with the corporation and pollution control board authorities. Most of the existing hotels did not have a place to treat biodegradable waste.

Pradeep Thakur, Commissioner of the Dharamsala Municipal Corporation, said the NGT had banned new construction in the Mcleodganj area. As per the NGT directions, the corporation had decided that no new construction would be allowed to come till it had the facility to treat its own biodegradable waste.

He said initially, they were trying to persuade the existing hoteliers to set up their own plants to treat the biodegradable waste. However, if the persuasion did not work, there were provisions of penalisation under the Solid Waste Management Rules-2016.