This is my 3rd commentary on Government’s Action Plan onSolid Waste Management. Recently Housing and Urban Development Department(HUDD) submitted a copy of its action plan before JK High Court in response toa Public Interest Litigation (PIL) titled Environmental Policy Group v/s Unionof India ,State of J&K and others.In-spite of the fact that waste management experts,civil society groups andabove all bidders having rejected this model , Government is still adamant toadopt the same. Under the cluster model,municipal solid waste from each townwould be brought to a centralized location for treatment. This ideaconceptualized by Government around 2- 3 years back has already failed to seeits implementation on ground. Instead of adopting a decentralized model,Government has once again made the same failed model part of its Action Plan.It is so shocking that Government has submitted same model before J&K HighCourt which already stands rejected by the implementing agencies. In-fact wehad deliberated in detail on this beforeChief Secretary last year in December on the direction of Hon’bleChief Justice.For information of people , civil society organizations , media , Governmentand Judiciary I am once again explaining the drawbacks of creatingcentralized waste processing plants under Government’s cluster approach.
Why no to cluster approach ?
Rule 5 of the Action Plan on solid waste management underheading Initiatives taken by Governmentdiscusses Government’s plan of creatingcluster waste processing sites. Under each cluster, two , three , four or even five towns areclubbed as a single unit. All the municipal solid waste will be transportedfrom adjoining towns to a one single location. In Rajouri cluster Governmentplans to get all the garbage from 4 towns of Kalakot ,Thamamandi , Nowshehraand Sunderbani to Rajouri town. The average distance of these towns fromRajouritown is 30-35kms. Similarly Ramban cluster which has no space forlandfilling will get more trash from towns of Banihal and Batote. In casenational highway gets closed, the garbage laden trucks will get stuck on thehighway for days together.
Challenges in Srinagar
Let us taken an example of Srinagar cluster. All the townsof Ganderbaland Budgam districts havebeen made part of Srinagar cluster under the action plan . This means solidwaste collected from towns of Charar e Sharief ,Chadoora , Budgam , Beerwah ,Magam , Khansahib and Ganderbal will betransported to landfill site at Achhan Srinagar which is already choked.Government will argue that they will create a new landfill site, but where ?From last 15 years SMC is in search of land for creating a new landfill site,but they have failed & the reason is lack of land availability in Srinagarand outskirts ? I have already written few articles on this wherein I have madeit clear that land deficit Kashmir valley has no land even for landfillingsolid waste. How is it possible for the garbage laden trucks to travel 30 to 35kms daily from various towns of Budgam and Ganderbal that too on dilapidatedroads ? How much resources andchallenges will this involve , has Govt thought about it ?
Conclusion
Had cluster model been economically viable for thecontractors and companies doing waste management work , the work would havebegan more than 2 years back. From last 3 years more than four pre-bidworkshops have been held in Srinagar and Delhi on this issue. Tenders werefloated fourtimes , but not even a single bidder agreed to work under thismodel. This indicates severe lacunas in cluster model. If Govt is once againtrying to adopt the same rejected model, it exhibits lack ofcommitment towardssolid waste management. I sincerely appeal Government to once again holddeliberations and consultations on cluster model. The positive aspects of decentralized modelwill be explained next week….