Chandigarh MP Manish Tewari Thursday criticised the shifting of deadlines but once more for clearing the large rubbish dump at Dadumajra, alleging that the federal government has been evasive concerning the expenditure incurred on the venture.
Tewari mentioned he had requested in Parliament concerning the sum of money spent since April 2019 on clearing and managing the location. “The federal government ducked the query as a result of the expenditure runs into an enormous sum, working into excessive numbers in crores,” he mentioned.
The Congress chief identified that the Chandigarh Administration and the Municipal Company had assured the Nationwide Inexperienced Tribunal (NGT) that the location can be cleared by December 25, 2024. This dedication was made within the Administrator’s Advisory Committee assembly in August 2024, he added.
Nonetheless, Tewari mentioned, when the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Housing and City Affairs visited Chandigarh, the Municipal Company mentioned the dump, together with each legacy and concurrent waste, can be cleared by June 2025. He mentioned in its newest response in Parliament, the federal government mentioned it has prolonged the deadline to July 31, 2025, with a caveat that it’s topic to climate situations. “It’s most unlucky that timelines are arbitrarily shifted each couple of weeks,” Tewari mentioned.
In its reply, the Ministry of Housing and City Affairs said that beneath Swachh Bharat Mission-City 2.0, Rs 28.50 crore had been permitted as Central help for the remediation of the legacy waste dumpsite in Chandigarh. Nonetheless, no separate allocation of funds had been made particularly for the Dadumajra dump, as funds for such tasks are launched beneath the mission’s Stable Waste Administration (SWM) element.
The ministry knowledgeable Parliament that two of the three legacy waste dumps at Dadumajra had already been cleared. Bio-remediation of the third dump, which contained roughly 2.40 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of waste as of January 2025, had now begun. The federal government reiterated that all the dump web site can be cleared by July 31, 2025, topic to climate situations.
Whereas listening to a PIL on the Dadumajra dump final month, the Punjab and Haryana Excessive Courtroom orally warned Chandigarh authorities that in the event that they don’t clear the Dadumajra rubbish dump by Could this yr, contempt proceedings can be initiated in opposition to them.
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Addressing issues about waste administration, the ministry mentioned sanitation is a state topic beneath the Seventh Schedule of the Structure, making it the accountability of the state and concrete native our bodies (ULBs) to plan, design, execute, and function sanitation tasks. It added that the central authorities supplies coverage instructions, monetary help, and technical help to states and ULBs.
To forestall the recurrence of such rubbish dumps, the federal government mentioned it had issued varied advisories and tips on stable waste administration, landfill reclamation, and disposal of legacy waste. It additionally supplied mannequin procurement paperwork to states to assist expedite the bidding course of for waste administration tasks.
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