<p>Order of the National Green Tribunal (Eastern Zone Bench, Kolkata) in the matter of Srikanta Samanta Vs State of West Bengal dated 13/11/2024.</p> <p>The matter related to a dumping ground located
Plans by the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) to set up a garbage disposal site has received a major setback, with the Cunchelim Communidade strongly opposing moves to acquire 32,050 sq mtrs of their la
With the High Court directing the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) to stop dumping the city's garbage at its present disposal site at Tonca, there is now nowhere for the city's rubbish to
The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) is all set to commission its bio-reactor solid waste treatment plant on March 8 which it hopes will temporarily handle the on-going garbage disposal crises in the capital city. According to the CCP, the in-vessel anaerobic technology can scientifically cater to at least 20 tonnes of bio-degradable waste. Presently the bio-degradable waste quantum generated in the city is around 6
Over the past few months, the Chennai Corporation has given permission to four municipalities in the Chennai Metropolitan Area to dump garbage in Perungudi. The site currently receives a few thousand tonnes of garbage and 200 tonnes of debris every day from the Chennai Corporation alone. Pallavaram, Madipakkam, Kottivakkam and Valasarawakkam municipalities have been allowed to use the site. The first three were granted permission with retrospective effect by the Corporation Council at its meeting on Friday. The local body is charging them Rs.261 per tonne, the same disposal charges levied on private parties dumping garbage at the site. Pallavaram, which generates about 75 tonnes of garbage a day, was using a 2.5-acre plot in Ganapathypuram for 35 years. As garbage had piled 15 feet high at the site, the High Court instructed the local body to immediately find an alternate site, according to a resolution passed by the council. The local body has been dumping part of its daily collection at Perungudi as a temporary measure. It hopes to use the solid waste management facility being developed for Pallavaram, Tambaram and Alandur local bodies at Venkatamangalam village at a cost of Rs.40 crore, which is expected to be ready in a year. It dumps about 50 tonnes of garbage daily at Perungudi. The Valasarawakkam municipality has been using the site for about two months now. The Madipakkam municipality was using a site in Karapakkam, where works on solid waste management improvement are currently being undertaken, and had sought permission to use Perungudi three months ago. Kottivakkam was using a lake to dump garbage. It was asked by the government to clean it up for rainwater harvesting. No information was available on when alternate sites would be identified by the last three municipalities in the resolutions passed on Friday. The Chennai Corporation was initially allotted 30 hectares on the Pallikaranai marsh that was later expanded to 58 for the dumping site. The Corporation had written to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority to help it identify a new dump site in 2004.
The Guntur Municipal Corporation leaves no stone unturned to ensure the city's all-round growth. THE Municipal Corporation of Guntur dreams big for the residents of the city, which has a more than 200-year-old history. It has achieved many firsts in its relatively brief existence of less than 20 years. The young corporation also has the youngest Mayor in the country, 23-year-old Kanna Nagaraju. The 52-member Municipal Council is guided by the young dynamic Municipal Commissioner Siddhartha Jain. Guntur means the village of tanks. It is believed that this village first came up close to what is known as the Red Tank. The French held Kondaveedu, a nearby village, from A.D. 1732 and built a fort to the east of the area now known as Old Guntur. The French commander constructed houses for himself and for his troopers towards the north of present-day Nallacheruvu (Black Tank) and this area was called New Guntur. One of the fastest developing Tier-III cities in Andhra Pradesh, Guntur has pride of place among municipal corporations in the State. A vibrant city, home to some of the wealthiest traders in cotton, chillis and tobacco, Guntur has fast metamorphosed into a modern city with an array of glittering shopping malls, restaurants and commercial complexes dotting the skyline. Providing basic civic amenities to a growing city with a population of over seven lakh has been a demanding task for the local body. It, however, has achieved many firsts, and dreams of providing 24-hour water supply to domestic and industrial consumers and meet the needs of the industrial corridor that is fast coming up between Vijayawada and Guntur. The corridor is expected to convert these into major Twin Cities of Andhra Pradesh after Hyderabad and Secunderabad. The GMC has achieved remarkable progress in augmenting basic amenities such as drinking water supply, sanitation, street lighting and solid waste management. It also has an efficient system in place to redress public grievances. "The GMC is highly responsive to civic problems and innovative in toning up its administrative machinery,' said District Collector Mohammad Ali Rafath. SANITATION A series of special drives has been launched by the Municipal Commissioner to augment the quality of basic services such as sanitation. The three-bin system has become a reality in many apartment complexes in the city and garbage clearance is 100 per cent. A week-long special sanitation drive in the city identified several issues, and short-term and long-term plans have been envisaged to solve them. For solid waste management, the GMC got a grant of Rs.1.26 crore from the Twelfth Finance Commission, which was spent on procuring dumper bins and tricycles. Today local residents' welfare associations take care of 50 per cent of the house-to-house garbage collection system. The use of coloured plastic bins for waste segregation at source has been introduced in some commercial areas too. Seventy-six acres of land was recently acquired in Yedlapadu mandal for dumping waste. Works such as construction of drains, laying of roads, improvement of road junctions and development of burial grounds were taken up at a cost of Rs.24 crore. Siddhartha Jain said: "People should be proud of the city they live in and be motivated to be part of the planned development. A systematic approach to administration and planning is the need of the hour. Special drives to improve sanitation and provide water supply connections will help in identifying several issues.' MEDICAL CAMP Mayor Kanna Nagaraju. At 23, he is the youngest Mayor in India. The municipal body is going beyond its principal mandate of providing basic amenities to the people; the GMC organises mega medical camps. The camps held on the Sri Patibandla Sitaramaiah High School grounds in December every year witnesses a huge turnout. The latest camp attracted more than 15,000 people. A team of 85 doctors from 20 specialisations attended to 13,400 patients. Medicines costing Rs.8.4 lakh were distributed. As many as 180 paramedical staff, students of nursing colleges and 370 cadets of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) volunteered their services. The success of the camp motivated some private hospitals and clinics to offer follow-up medical service for the patients. They would be treated for a month at a hospital of their choice. One of the most daunting tasks for the corporation is to ensure potable drinking water for the entire city. Guntur, which does not have a raw water source, depends on the Guntur Channel and the Buckingham Channel to supply 80 million litres per day (MLD) against the total ideal assessed demand of 121 MLD. The centuries-old water source at Sangam Jagarlamudi has been renovated thanks to the special interest shown by the Mayor. A water filtration plant of 10 million gallons per day has been commissioned and four reservoirs have been built at L.B. Nagar, Srinivasarao Thota, R.T.C. Colony and Stambalagaruvu. Rise in rEVENUE The corporation saw a turnaround in its finances with a near 100 per cent collection of tax and non-tax revenue from individuals and commercial establishments. Innovative steps taken by Deputy Commissioner N. Yadagiri Rao to boost revenue collection have yielded results; of the total 1.14 lakh assessments, 941 were new assessments. The revenue wing has been trifurcated
Acting CCP mayor apologises for inconvenience As Panjim enjoyed a breath of fresh air today after four days of garbage stench, acting mayor of the City of Corporation of Panjim, Yaten Parekh today apologised to the citizens of the city for the inconvenience caused owing to the workers' stir. Parekh speaking to Herald today said that the corporators along with the team of employees worked round the clock since late Monday night and cleared the accumulated garbage from every nook and corner of the city. While most of the garbage was cleared last night, remains at remote locations were lifted early today morning. The corporation today categorically denied allegations that the Tonca landfill site is being used to hold the city to ransom at the behest of politicos. The acting Mayor disclosed that even after chief minister assured action against the culprits in the assault of CCP Mayor, that locals residing around the site continued to object to the dumping of waste at the said site. Parekh disclosed that the CCP members had to appease the agitated lot, "Only after which the dumping operations began late on Monday night,' he said. Interestingly, the bio-reactor plant being set up by the CCP at Patto has successfully completed trial runs. However its commissioning is likely to be delayed on account of the Mayor's absence. The CCP Commissioner Sanjiv Gadkar told Herald that he did explore the possibility of starting he treatment plant during the strike. "But the quantum of accumulated waste was too large,' he said explaining further that no manpower was available to segregate the close to 70 tonnes of garbage that accumulated during the last five days. The four-day stir also witnessed a saga at the St Inez animal shelter where cattle remained starving and unattended. It is learnt that acting Mayor Parekh took timely action and had fodder supplied to the shelter.
Goyche Niz Mogi has demanded action against the mayor CCP Tony Rodrigues and deputy mayor Yatin Parekh for allowing the city to stink for four days. It was the duty of the mayor and the councilors to ensure that the city is kept clean and that garbage is disposed off regularly, president James Fernandes said pointing out that the CCP leaders cannot encourage workers to strike work for political reasons. He has questioned the Chief Secretary J P Singh as to why Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) had not been invoked against the strike of CCP workers.
Leader of the Opposition Manohar Parrikar, who is also the Panjim MLA, today said that the garbage problem caused in the capital city due to the strike called by the Corporation of City of Panaji workers, would be settled by tomorrow. Parrikar claimed that he met the CCP Mayor Tony Rodrigues on the issue in the hospital and discussed the effects of the workers stir. "The mayor was also of the opinion that the common man should not be put to hardship for the fault of someone else,' Parrikar said while addressing a press conference in the city. He said that the mayor is still recuperating from the injuries he received during the police assault and is still not able to sit or talk properly. However, he said, the common man cannot be taken to task by the workers for the police misdeeds. "If they have any grievances against the police and ministers, stop collecting garbage from their places but the common man should not suffer,' he stated. "I will speak to the concerned officials CCP commissioner, acting mayor and the councillors tomorrow and am confident the issue would be resolved by evening,' he said. When pointed out that the union leader of the CCP workers Keshav Prabhu is a BJP office bearer and he could have easily sorted out the issue for last two days Parrikar said that the strike has not been called by the union. "The workers were hurt by the police action after the stone pelting of police station wherein Mayor Tony Rodrigues and Monseratte family was manhandled and called the strike on its own and that nothing much the union leader can do,' he said.
Forget pollution woes. The city is in the grip of a feathered monster which is slowly but surely driving out other birds from its limits. Sparrows, pigeons, parrots and koels are suffering because of the ever-increasing population of crows. The house crow or the common crow is a common sight in India and are abundantly found in the cities. They are also termed as scavengers for their constant search for edibles and the term has been passed over by the vultures that are facing extinction. The crow population in a few years' time might simply preponderate to other bird population in the country. These abysmal creatures survive on garbage, anything dump carelessly without proper sanitation or dead rodents. At times they even feed on human spit. Speaking to FPJ, Anish Andheria, director, science, natural history and photography, Sanctuary Asia said, " the crow population has grown because of humans; we are extremely poor in getting rid of the waste and dump garbage in an open waste ground. Crows are indicators of solid man-made pollution and reflect what we do to the environment. We need to change our dirty and unhealthy practices or otherwise just watch the crow population mounting.' In addition to this, they are being deemed as a threat to other birds like sparrows, koels, parrots or pigeons that are very vulnerable and defenceless or are simply too weak to retaliate. And at times they don't kill these weak birds like sparrows just because they are hungry but for self-gratification. The next time when you hear a koel croon, listen to it a little longer for you may not hear that crooning after a few years as the birds could be annihilated completely by the destructive crows who are out there to get every other species of birds, feel several environmentalists. These crows ruthlessly attack young, attractive birds unnecessarily which can be hazardous for their population.' States Anish. It is being apparently known that the hapless sparrows are disappearing mainly due to these over-populated black birds that pursue them unconditionally. These abominable creatures are actually killed in Singapore, it being a cleanliness conscious city; these feathered monsters are proved to be an anathema for its immaculate environment and are therefore done away with. On the contrary it has been stated that crows can act as cleanliness agents for the city for they consume everything that is carelessly jettisoned which could be a source of pollution. They regularly eat away the rats that are left dead and mutilated by a speeding vehicle. " It's a meager benefit from these birds and cannot be termed as an advantage, it's the responsibility of the municipality to clean such filth like dead rats and not of crows. It is very unhealthy. The best way is to reduce the garbage and regularly clean the niche provided for garbage to lessen the crow population,' adds Anish.
Residents of Howrah may finally heave a sigh of relief as it will not be long before the garbage dump at Belgacchia in Howrah is turned into a green power plant. The Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) has already prepared the letter of intent (LOI). It will be sent to the state government for approval and then sent to Solid Waste Electricity Company (Selco) International Limited, the company which has bagged the project, for its perusal. An official of the building and planning department of the civic body, said: "The letter has been drafted, it just needs the state government's approval before being sent to Selco. Once LOI reaches Selco, it will then have to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) for which we have given them 10 days time. Selco will then have to get clearance from the environment department as well as the Pollution Control Board.' He added that once all these formalities are completed, the memorandum of understanding (MoU) will be signed. At the time of signing of MoU, Selco will be paying Rs 10 lakh to the HMC as guarantee. Selco, the Hyderabad-based company, will then get 18 months time to complete the power plant project. However, it may be granted an extended time of six months if it is unable to complete the project within 18 months, owing to any unavoidable circumstances. The official further added that a power purchase agreement (PPA) will be signed between Selco, HMC and West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency (WBREDA) only when the green plant starts producing electricity. Though the official refused to divulge details of the tariffs the civic body has set to impose on Selco, he said that HMC will be enjoying major benefits. The decision to turn the huge heap of garbage at Belgacchia into a green plant was taken in June last year by WBREDA, HMC and DM. However, it took some months before Selco was chosen for the project, defeating two foreign investors, one each from China and the USA. Mr Imitiaz Ahmed, MMiC (garbage and conservancy), said: "We had invited global tenders and so even foreign companies had shown interest in the project. However, Selco was selected as it had the right expertise and suited the interests of the civic body.' The HMC will supply about 600 metric tons of garbage every day which will generate 6 MW power. The project is the first of its kind in West Bengal.
