Now, FIR against Ludhiana factories dumping waste into sewers

Ludhiana mayor Harcharan Singh Gohalwaria has ordered registration of FIRs against factory owners, who illegally dump waste into sewer lines on Bahadur Ke Road, causing inconvenience to the residents in the vicinity.

Ludhiana mayor Harcharan Singh Gohalwaria has ordered registration of FIRs against factory owners, who illegally dump waste into sewer lines on Bahadur Ke Road, causing inconvenience to the residents in the vicinity.

The officials of the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Wing of MC were earlier shying away from lodging FIRs against the violators.

Municipal corporation officials claimed that they had disconnected the illegal sewer connection on Bahadur Ke Road on August 7 but they did not take any legal action against the violators.

According to sources, MC authorities did not conduct an inquiry to know the actual number of violators, who were using the MC’s sewer lane.

Some of the MC officials are also facing allegations that they are hand-in-glove with factory owners responsible for releasing waste into MC’s sewer lane.

Executive engineer of (O&M) wing Pardeep Saluja said they have already disconnected illegal sewer connection, so there was no need to lodge an FIR.

Talking to HT, mayor Harcharan Singh Gohalwaria said he directed zonal commissioner Kamlesh Bansal to lodge an FIR against violators who had taken the sewer connection illegally. “If anybody takes illegal connection, it is the responsibility of the officials concerned to lodge FIR against the violators.”

On Tuesday, a team of MC was attacked by more than 100 persons when the team went to check the status of the alleged illegal connection, which the MC claimed has been disconnected,on Bahadur Ke Road on Tuesday.

Gohalwaria said, “It was sheer hooliganism as the MC employees were on duty when they were attacked. We will not tolerate this. We will bring this incident to the notice of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.”

Area councillor from ward number 1 Randhir Singh Sivia claimed that the MC has yet not disconnected the illegal sewer connection as the MC’s sewer lane remains busy because the factories outside MC’s limit are allegedly releasing waste into sewer lane of MC.