By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 22 Feb: Garhwal Post in its report dated 3 February had compared the waste management in Dehradun with that being done in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation which is a twin city of Pune. In the report, it was pointed out that Dehradun generates around 450 MT of solid waste every day. However, there is no segregation between various categories of solid waste and the disposal is also lacking. In fact, the garbage mountain in Shishambara Landfill keeps piling up higher higher every day in the absence of any effective solid waste treatment system in place.
As compared to this, Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation generates almost double the amount of solid waste every day and yet is able to treat most of it and even manages to generate electricity from the treatment plant.
As per the latest IIT Roorkee report submitted to the government and the Dehradun Nagar Nigam, the current pile of the solid waste collected at Shishambara landfill has gone up to 5 lakh MT, having doubled during the past one year or so.
The Dehradun Municipal Corporation (Nagar Nigam) and the Uttarakhand Urban Development Department have been unable to tackle the problem on the one hand and have failed to take any effective action against the companies that have been hired by the Nagar Nigam for solid waste management. In fact, there is no plan in place how to deal with this pile. The garbage collection in the city also continues to be erratic and there is not even the basic segregation between the dry and wet garbage.
While the company M/s Ramky Group (of Hyderabad) that had been assigned to handle the waste management has been fired, the company assigned the responsibility of supervision and monitoring the work of M/s Ramky continues its operation even when it has failed to take care of the task. This company is M/s JVV Technocrat and it continues its contract without being effective.
It may be recalled that the responsibility of garbage disposal in Shishambara plant was given to Ramky Group of Haridwar in 2018. Three landfills were also made available to the company by the Nagar Nigam. After disposal of the garbage, the remaining garbage had to be filled in the landfill. Then it had to be treated and disposed of. However, the Company kept dumping the garbage directly into the landfill without treating the garbage. Even the basic task of segregation was not carried out which could have facilitated the waste treatment and disposal. Within a period of three to four years since then, all the three landfills were filled and a huge mountain of garbage has piled up.
When environmentalists and the local residents raised the issue, M/s Ramky Infrastructure was shown the door to dispel any further criticism but no penal action was taken against the company nor any action taken against the monitoring company M/s JVV Technocrat. The city’s garbage is first collected in Kargi landfill and then sent to Shishambara and most of it is just dumped there without any treatment and further disposal as was mandated under the contract.
IIT Roorkee was asked to conduct a study of the waste management system of Dehradun and it prepared a report. But this report was not submitted and, instead, a second report has been prepared and submitted by IIT Roorkee. No plan seems to be in the offing for any concrete solid waste management in Dehradun or any other city in the state. If this situation continues and the pile of garbage keeps growing without any treatment and disposal, the situation will become worse. Though a plan is under preparation under the Smart City project, it remains to be seen how long it will take for the DPR to be ready and implemented.
