CPS Sidhu visits Bhagtanwala site

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 1

Fear and anxiety overtook residents living in localities around the Bhagtanwala dump yard as rumour spread that the Municipal Corporation staff along with a police team was heading towards the dump yard, which didn’t happen.

The MC’s garbage-laden tractor trailers, with heavy police protection, had left for another site at Fatahpur to unload garbage.

However, the residents were surprised to see Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS) Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu, who was the first among the BJP leadership to pay a visit to their locality.

Dr Sidhu monitored the working of the health camp set up by the office of the civil surgeon. Even as the camp was earlier planned to be conducted for two days, looking at the scenario and large number of residents suffering from one ailment or the other, Dr Sidhu insisted to continue the camp.

The residents unanimously demanded from Dr Sidhu that the site of garbage dumping and solid waste management plant should be shifted from Bhagtanwala.

Even as Dr Sidhu told them that the city garbage would no longer be dumped in their locality, she could not commit on their demand of shifting of the solid waste management plant site.

Sanjay Sharma, a resident of Bhagtanwala area, said a ray of hope had emerged after the visit of Dr Sidhu and the support provided by CPS Inderbir Singh Bolaria.

He said they had given them assurance that the solid waste management plant would not be installed at Bhagtanwala without taking the area residents into confidence.

She apprised the residents that even as the project has been delayed for want of official formalities which were yet to be furnished, the plant was the only answer to resolve the problem of garbage that the holy city has been facing.

Another resident Gurcharan Singh said, “Dr Sidhu was also escorted to the dumping site to let her have the feel of the prevailing dismal conditions under which thousands of residents were compelled to live in. She has supported our cause,” he said.