Srinagar, June 2: Jammu and Kashmir High Court has asked the government to inform as to why the solid waste is being dumped at the site other than the one earmarked for the purpose at Lethpora in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
A division bench of Chief Justice PankajMithal and Justice VinodChatterjiKoul issued direction while hearing a Public Interest Litigation filed by residents of Village Parigam District Pulwama through Advocate ShafqatNazir.
In their plea the residents submitted that for the towns of Pulwama, Awantipora, Pampore, Shopian and Khrew, 90 Kanals of land at LethporaPulwama was identified and earmarked for cluster Pulwama for disposal of solid waste.
The site, they said, was fenced at the expense of crores of rupees and thereafter utilised for disposal of solid waste for a period of more than one year but was stopped thereafter.
The petition underlines that the government has identified a piece of land at village Parigam Pulwama for disposal of Solid Waste by flouting not only Solid Waste Management Rules of 2016 but also the Jammu and Kashmir State Integrated Solid Waste Management Strategy, 2017.
Since the enactment of Environmental Protection Act, 1986, by the parliament, the petitioner say, the Union Government from time to time has been prescribing rules for regulation and implementation of the objectives contained in the Act. In 2016, they plead, a new set of rules under the caption “Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016” came to be prescribed, repealing and replacing the Solid Management Rules of 2000.
The petitioners plead that the government has till date not taken any steps in the direction of implementing the rules of 2016 and there are no efforts for local segregation and treatment of the solid waste to ensure that only 10% of such waste is taken in landfill sites. “There is no effective planning to ensure conversion of possible waste into energy, organic compost and treatment of other solid waste under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, instead reckless collection and unmanaged and illegal dumping of solid waste in areas closed to human population is being preferred,” they plead.
The petitioners submit that the concerned department under rule 11(1) of Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, laid down Jammu and Kashmir State Integrated Solid Waste Management Strategy, 2017.