E-Paper
Shifting of Mohali dumping ground: MC chief told to appear before HC
The illegal dumping has become a bane of residents living hardly 50 metres from the dump....
With the local municipal corporation (MC) continuing to dump the city’s daily garbage on the vacant land in Phase 8B, Industrial Area, the Punjab and Haryana high court has directed the MC commissioner to be present in court on April 15, the next date of hearing into the shifting of the dumping site.
The illegal dumping has become a bane of residents living hardly 50 metres from the dump, with foul smell and mosquitoes becoming a permanent feature of the area.
Satwant Singh Rangi, counsel of the petitioning housing complex, located next to the dump, said, “The society’s members as well as the gram panchayats of Chappar Chiri Kalan, Chappar Chiri Khurd and Kailon villages have requested the authorities concerned several times to move the dumping ground to another place. But after they failed to act, the society filed a PIL in high court on April 12, 2006.”
The petition remained pending for several years before the court summoned various senior officials.
Ultimately, Suresh Kumar, the then principal secretary of Punjab department of local government, submitted an affidavit on May 1, 2012, stating that a solid waste management facility would come up at Samgauli village within 16 months.
The matter recently came up for hearing on February 28, where Rangi argued that till date, nothing concrete was done by the state government to shift the dump, and waste was still being discarded at the same spot, resulting into a mountain of garbage.
The counsel stated that the lives of local residents had become hell due to the foul smell emanating from the dumping site, and yet the MC was not taking any precautionary measures in line with the guidelines of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) and the Punjab Pollution Control Board.
After considering the arguments, the division bench of HC issued directions to the MC commissioner to be present in court on April 15.
