Ensure no garbage on city roads: HC to Amritsar MC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday directed the Amritsar municipal commissioner to take effective steps within six weeks to ensure garbage dumped on city roads is collected by the civic body. While directing the commissioner Dharam Pal to make arrangements for door-to-door collection of garbage within a fortnight,the court also asked the municipal corporation (MC) to allotment the work for the setting up of a garbage disposal plant in Amritsar within the six weeks .

The directions were passed by a division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Jasbir Singh and Justice Rakesh Kumar Jain during the resumed hearing of a PIL demanding directions to the MC to ameliorate the condition of garbage disposal in Amritsar.

Pal,who was present in the court,said that the MC has deployed 47 trolleys for collecting garbage. Lawyer Satya Pal Jain,the counsel for Amritsar MP Navjot Sidhu — who was also present in court — informed the bench that Amritsar was one of the first cities in the country to introduce door-to-door garbage collection. But in the absence of a processing unit,the efforts practically went down the drain.

Jain sought directions to the MC for making alternative arrangements of garbage collection till the process of treatment plant was not completed.