The Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the Mohali municipal corporation to create a special cell for monitoring waste disposal management at dumping sites and bio-remediation plants in the city.
The high court bench of justice Sureshwar Thakur and justice Lalit Batra underlined that the effective functionality of installed bio-remediation plants was required to be regularly monitored. It further directed the present MC commissioner and her successors in office to ensure that the special cell made weekly reports, which the commissioner could present before the court, whenever the case was taken up.
The court said the commissioner will monitor the cell’s work and in case some deficiency was reflected, will take remedial steps. Responsibility will lie with the members of the cell and the commissioner, the court said, adding that for any dereliction of duty found by the commissioner, she would ensure that responsibility was fixed against the officer concerned and departmental proceedings were initiated against them.
The court was hearing a plea, pending since 2006, in which a Mohali society had approached the HC, alleging non-treatment and ineffective treatment of solid waste by civic authorities, which had led to stench engulfing Phase 8B, Industrial Area, and surroundings. The case was disposed of in 2012 after authorities promised to take requisite steps. As nothing changed on the ground, the residents approached HC again in 2019 for revival of the plea. Since then, the court has been monitoring various steps taken by the authorities.
{{/usCountry}}The court was hearing a plea, pending since 2006, in which a Mohali society had approached the HC, alleging non-treatment and ineffective treatment of solid waste by civic authorities, which had led to stench engulfing Phase 8B, Industrial Area, and surroundings. The case was disposed of in 2012 after authorities promised to take requisite steps. As nothing changed on the ground, the residents approached HC again in 2019 for revival of the plea. Since then, the court has been monitoring various steps taken by the authorities.
{{/usCountry}}As per Mohali MC, at present 100% door-to-door collection and 85% source segregation is done within its areas. Efforts are being made by MC to complete the remaining 15% source segregation by organising awareness camps, which is likely to be completed within six months, it submitted, adding that bio-remediation of waste generated was being done and the Phase 8B landfill was filled up to 60% to its capacity.
The court has now directed the MC commissioner to personally ensure that the process for bio-remediation plants’ installation be expedited and dumping waste sites are filled only up to 50% of their capacity.
As the local commissioner’s report revealed that there were inadequate measures about fire safety at the dumping sites and bio-remediation pits, the court said the members of the monitoring cell will ensure that adequate quantum of sand always existed at the relevant sites and other fire-fighting mechanisms that were required at every site were made effectively functional for curbing the menace of fires.
The court took exception to the fact that the district town planners had failed to make provision in either interim relevant development plan or in final development plan for earmarkings of any zones as dumping sites. “The above is prima facie, a dereliction of duty, on the part of the state town planner, especially when it has resulted in the dumping sites being created in proximity to thickly inhabited colony(ies), which but causes imminent endanger to the health of the residents of the colony,” the court remarked.
The court has also sought proposal from MC for ensuring that a better and a more friendly environment exists in the neighbourhoods of the dumping sites, where a sizeable population resides. The proposal is required so that residents living in the vicinity remain free from any deleterious effects of methane gas, which is generated from the dumping sites, it said.