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Nagpur: District Collector along with NMC administration along have woken up to the glitch that the space reserved for compost depot at Bhandewadi was being used for dumping garbage for years. A delegation led by social worker Avantika Lekuwale met both the collector and NMC commissioner and apprised them of the major irregularities at Bhandewadi yard. Taking serious note of the situation the authorities assured the delegation that the ‘mistake’ would be rectified within a month.
NMC’s misguiding ways
It turned out that the dumping of garbage at the space reserved for compost depot has been posing serious health threat to around 50,000 population residing in the vicinity. Lekurwale alleged that NMC administration has been adopting misguiding ways in the name of solid waste management. It may be mentioned that two policies were framed in the year 2000 and then again in 2016, in which the process of compost preparation, land filling and dumping yard has been neatly defined and kept separate from each other. NMC hablatantly violated the policy and has been operating the place as dumping yard in place of compost depot.
Serious health threat
Lekurwale said that Bhandewadi’s illegal dumping yard is far from being the waste and garbage management. The rotten garbage pollutes the ground water level as well as the surrounding water bodies. This means that the water bodies around 10 kms Bhandewadi has been polluted.
Matter cropped up in the past too
Back in 2011, a petition was filed against similar problems arising out of illegal garbage dumping at Bhandewadi’s compost depot. Then the residents of Hiwri Nagar, Deshpande Layout, Surya Nagar, Wardhaman Nagar and other connecting areas complained about the issue. The court transferred the case to Green Tribunal in 2013. In 2014 Green Tribunal imposed a fine of Rs 20 lakh each upon the contractor company Hanzer and NMC. Both the respondents then also deposited the fine. The amount was ordered to be utilized in health improvement measures for the residents of vicinity and in green belt development. However the order has still not been implemented yet.
Flouting Garbage processing norms!
Lekurwale informed that pollution board had visited Bhandewadi in 2013. At that time only 40 metric tonne waste was said to be treated. However she added that the processing machine installed by Hanzer should be ideally processing 550 MLD waste. Then 800 MLD garbage was collected from the city on daily basis whereas the machine’s capacity is only 550 MLD. Rest of the waste is left untreated which is further polluting the atmosphere.
Similarly Nagpur flushes out 400 MLD sewerage however only 40 MLD can be treated and the rest is flowed in Nag river. This untreated waste further flows into Gosikhurd.
