Garbage centres in Mohali set to undergo ₹2-cr revamp
Since June last year, Mohali has been reeling under a waste management crisis as the Phase 8-B dump site was closed in the wake of the high court rap, which left the MC’s 14 RMCs in the city to overflow with waste
As the Mohali Municipal Corporation (MC) House passed all 14 resolutions on the agenda during a meeting held on Thursday, councillors raised their concerns over poor sanitation, damaged parks and public gyms, water logging, poor maintenance of community centres and sewerage overflow in villages that come under the jurisdiction of the civic body.
To tackle the garbage crisis, the MC House passed a proposal to construct a shed and upgrade the Resource Management Centres (RMC) points in Mohali at a cost of ₹2.2 crore.
Since June last year, Mohali has been reeling under a waste management crisis as the Phase 8-B dump site was closed in the wake of a high court rap. This had left the MC’s 14 RMCs in the city to overflow with waste, prompting the civic body to suspend garbage collection from the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) areas.
For years, the RMCs have been tackling over 150 tonnes of garbage on a daily basis — a significant portion of which comes from GMADA areas. While most of the waste was processed, some of it was dumped at the Phase 8-B site, leading to the accumulation of around 2.5 lakh cubic metres of legacy waste. In keeping with the HC orders, the 8-B site is now used only for bioremediation of legacy waste.
A Panchkula-based contractor, Friends Associates, was hired temporarily to process the waste collected at the 14 RMCs last year. MC had paid around ₹1,090 per tonne to the private contractor.
Now the MC has given a fresh contract to Suntan Life, Panchkula, for collecting and processing the city’s garbage waste. The said company has already installed two garbage processing plants in Jagatpura (100 tonne capacity) and Shahi Majra (60 tonne capacity).
“The two new processing plants installed by the new contractor are expected to start by Friday, following which we are hoping to get absolute relief from the garbage issues in the city,” said MC commissioner Parminder Pal Singh.
Meanwhile, the councillors of Matuar and Phase 3-A complained of an obnoxious stink in the areas due to the RMC points situated there and requested the mayor for their relocation.
The MC House also passed the resolution to renew the contract of the cattle catcher.
Earlier, the contract was allotted at ₹950 per cattle, which was the lowest bid. MC has now again set ₹1,500 per cattle limit for the catcher this year. “We will invite bids and the lowest one will get the contract. Maximum limit is ₹1,500, similar to last year,” an MC officer said.
War of words between councillor, mayor
The MC House witnessed major uproar after Sarabjit Singh, MC councillor from Ward Number 38, who is also the son of Mohali MLA Kulwant Singh, exchanged heated arguments with MC mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu of the Congress party, the brother of former health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, over a recent theft case registered against a female congress councillor at the Mataur police station.
After an AAP councillor asked about the mayor’s reaction over the FIR on Ward Number 9 councillor and her husband for allegedly stealing interlocking tiles from her ward and using them at their farmhouse near Jhanjeri village, the mayor termed it as a political move.
Sarabjit Singh, confronting the mayor, said that rather than blaming the government, he should keep an eye on his councillors.
Students to be charged ₹10 per day for using public libraries
With an aim to generate revenue, the MC has shifted the burden on the students.As per an agenda passed by the MC House, the associations running five out of the total nine libraries in different parks in the city will either collect ₹10, make a ₹200 monthly pass, or charge an annual ₹1,000 membership fee from the students who visit these libraries for study.These associations will further deposit the collected money to the MC.
Condemning the move, deputy mayor Kuljit Singh Bedi said, “It is not right to charge money from students. Moreover, the associations managing these libraries include senior citizens. It will be a burden on them to maintain the records”.