Jalandhar: MC buys more time to shift Model Town dump

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Jalandhar, October 18

Residents of Model Town under the banner of Joint Action Committee today met Municipal Corporation Joint Commissioner Shikha Bhagat over the issue of shifting the Model Town dump. The members said the Joint Commissioner has asked them to wait for another 45 days before the dump is shifted. “The Joint Commissioner has promised us that the garbage will only be allowed to be thrown till 12 in the noon, and no waste from other wards would be thrown in the dump,” the residents said.

“Bhagat also said that by 2 in the afternoon, the dump will be cleaned. But another wait of 45 days is there,” Jaswinder Singh of the Joint Action Committee said.

He added that such claims were made earlier too but waste continued to be thrown at the dump site. “Still we are hopeful that if a senior official has promised something, there will definitely be some improvement,” he added.

Notably, the residents have been requesting the officials concerned to resolve the issue for years now, but to no avail.

During the press conference, the members said that they were unable to live in such conditions. “Come to the place, and no one will be able to stand for even five minutes there. An unbearable powerful stench emanates from the area all the time and reptiles, mosquitoes and other insects have made the situation worse,” they regretted.

Recently, in their ongoing protest against the dump site, residents of the Model Town area had also held a candle march. They had said the march was held in the memory of those who lost their lives due to problems arising from the dump site.The protesters were seen holding placards bearing slogans like ‘Not smart, but welcome to Garbage City Jalandhar’ and ‘Enough is enough’.

Environmentalist and Rajya Sabha MP Sant Balbir Singh Seechewal had also reached the site then and the protestors had informed him about the problem. Joint Action Committee member Jaswinder Singh said they would wait for the officials to fulfill their promises, failing which they would intensify their protests.