An order by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to speed up bioremediation of legacy waste from Sector 23 and Jhuriwala dumping ground has brought little or no relief for locals of the Trans-Ghaggar region. The green court had last week pulled up the Panchkula administration for doing barely enough to shift garbage from Sector 23 dumping ground and Jhuriwala Dumping Ground to Ambala. The NGT had, while observing that there was practically no progress in remediation of legacy waste at Jhuriwala or Sector 23, stated tht the "situation needed to be handled in mission mode in view of continuing failures so far". A bunch of locals living in the Trans-Ghaggar region on Saturday, however, stated that Panchkula is slated to start door-to-door collection of garbage in its area soon, which they said would add to their woes. They expressed apprehensions that all the waste collected in Panchkula will be first dumped in Jhuriwala and in Sector 23 before being eventually moved to Ambala. As per details, Panchkula Municipal Corporation had allotted the tender for door-to-door garbage collection on May 1. The hired contractor, as per details of the contract, is supposed to start door-to-door garbage collection from May 9 onward. BR Mehta, a resident of Sector 25 in Trans-Ghaggar region, said, "We have strong apprehension that the garbage collected from throughout Panchkula will first be dumped at the Jhuriwala dumping ground before later being moved to Ambala. The claims of the Panchkula civic body of establishing six material recovery facilities (MRFs) is yet to see the light of the day. In its November 2022 order, the National Green Tribunal had slapped a Rs 10 crore fine against Panchkula and Kalka-Pinjore civic authorities for polluting the environment. The fine was deposited with the Deputy Commissioner of Panchkula. We still do not know how much of the money has been spent to develop a forest on the Jhuriwala land, which is overflowing with garbage." Another local resident, Advocate Nitesh Mittal, added, "The Panchkula municipal corporation should have made it clear before allocation of the contract for door-to-door collection of garbage that waste was not to be dumped at Sector 23 or at the Jhuriwala dumping ground at any cost. Any further dumping of waste in these areas will be contempt of the orders of NGT. We want the garbage collected from Panchkula to be directly transported to Ambala." Panchkula Mayor, Kulbhushan Goyal, however, allayed the fears of locals and said that garbage collected will directly be taken to Patvi in Ambala as submitted before the NGT. "We have taken a note of the concerns flagged by the residents of the Trans-Ghaggar region. I have been told that small collection vehicles cannot go to Ambala from Panchkula directly to dump the garbage. The new contractor has hence been asked to arrange three to four big trucks. We have told the contractor that the garbage collected from Panchkula be transferred to the big trucks somewhere outside the city. The contractor will share his plan of action regarding the same with the civic body on Monday," Goyal said. Between June 2021 and April 2022, the Punjab Engineering College (PEC) had assessed the amount of waste lying at the Jhuriwala dumping ground to be around 90,000 MT. The Panchkula civic authority, had last week, submitted before the NGT that "It expected that the process of selection of an agency for disposal of legacy waste would be completed within a month and waste will be remediated by October, 2023."
