news details |
|
|
| SMC, ERA fail to fulfil Mufti's dream | | Solid waste management in Srinagar | |
Early Times Report
Srinagar, Apr 2: The Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) as well as Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) which undertakes mega developmental projects in J&K since 2003 has failed to fulfill dream of former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed vis a vis using its state of art technologies for managing Municipal Solid Waste in Srinagar city. The SMC had already miserably failed to manage the solid waste in Srinagar and it is under target of National Green Tribunal (NGT) as well.
In May last year Mufti Mohammad Sayeed had stressed upon J&K Economic Reconstruction Agency (ERA) to use state-of-the-art technologies in their ongoing solid waste management projects. He had called upon ERA to prepare plan for futuristic projects which could be taken up under Tranche III of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded loans. ERA could not prepare these kind of projects.
"Mufti sahib was very keen about making Srinagar and Jammu cities clean and green but the Municipal Corporations in both the cities especially SMC failed to fulfill his dreams and ERA also could not take his dream projects to logical the conclusion . It is a matter of concern that Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) which was directed by the then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed to install mechanical segregators at ACHAN landfill site costing only 1 to 2 crores, never went ahead and instead planned to install an obsolete waste to energy plant costing hundreds of crores" says Mohammad Ramzan Khan an environmental activist from Srinagar.
Environmental experts say that is the prime responsibility of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) to abide by requirement of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Rules 2000, which are being further tightened up in the revised version likely to be notified by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Government of India soon.
SMC cannot get away by saying that it is ERA who is managing the MSW disposal. Similarly ERA should get dissociated form this Task. Results of full scale treatment of Srinagar's entire Collected &Transported waste w.e.f 23rd Nov 2015 till 29th February 2016 will show clear paths as to what are extent of contents in Srinagar's city waste and whether these are "burnable"/ Biomethanable/ Biocompostable/ Fuel Pelletisable and recyclables ?
Since the enactment of MSW Rules 2000 on 25th Sept 2000 4-5 dictated-Tailor made DPRs have been prepared by different agencies for SMC. None of these have shown legal pathways to address the waste problem in cost Effective, Eco-friendly-recycling-promoting technologies.
Sources say that one DPR for Solid Waste Management (SWM) was prepared by a Bangalore based company namely M/S Tide Technocrats. The said company had no-track record of working in Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) sector anywhere in India. This has been greatly relied upon even to present misleading information to promote " Waste burning" technology at 3 to 4 times more capital cost with horrible consequences of spoiled breathing air quality on round the clock basis, spoiling of the biggest tourism attracting Dal Lake's water with Fugitive Dust Particles. There is suppression of fact that almost 40 % of Srinagar's waste which will be fed to Incinerator based Waste to Energy plant will come out as partially burnt bottom residue (instead of ash) that will eat away land area of 31 hectare as landfill in 25 years as against 7 hectare with integrated recycling technologies. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
