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Legacy waste mgmt: Respond to allegations of tampered DPR, HC tells Chandigarh admn, MC
Chandigarh municipal corporation has been asked to respond to the allegations pertaining to the tampering of detailed project report prepared for legacy waste management at the Dadumajra landfill
The Punjab and Haryana high court has asked the Chandigarh municipal corporation and local administration to respond to allegations of tampering of the detailed project report (DPR) prepared for the management of legacy waste at the Dadumajra landfill.
Acting chief justice GS Sandhawalia and justice Vikas Bahl were hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed in 2016 by a city resident against the huge pile of waste at the Dadumajra waste management site.
The case concerns the daily suffering of over 50,000 people in Dadumajra due to poor waste management by MC, leading to smelly mountains of garbage.
The report was submitted in November last year. However, one of the counsels, Amit Sharma, had filed an application in February this year, alleging tampering in the document. As per Sharma, the document had over 150 handwritten changes to the financials estimates. The response is to be filed by August 27.
During the hearing, he also pointed out that while a mountain of garbage located towards the highway had been flattened, a third dump, as large as the first one, was emerging. The reality on the ground contradicts the claims of MC, he had stated.
Earlier, MC had told court that two agencies had participated in the third tender floated for setting up of an integrated solid waste management processing plant and decision regarding allotment was to be taken by July 15.
The court was also told that while 5 lakh metric tonnes of waste had been bio-remediated on around 20 acres, work on bio-remediation of another 7.67 metric tonnes of legacy waste at the second site of 8 acres was started in December 2023 and was to be completed in 43 months.
So far, 6.82 metric tonnes of waste had been processed. It further said MC was processing 150 tonnes of dry waste daily. As of wet waste, 185 tonnes was being processed daily in the composting facility. A total of 70 tonnes of mixed waste was being sent to the dump on daily basis. To segregate the same, the required facility will be installed in the next six months, the affidavit filed by MC commissioner Anindita Mitra said.
