Upset over waste management plant, Bathinda residents want it relocated

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 8

Bathinda Urban MLA Jagroop Singh Gill has raised a demand to relocate a solid waste management plant to outskirts from its existing spot during zero hour at Vidhan Sabha.

While talking to The Tribune over phone, Jagroop Gill said that he has demanded to relocate the plant as MC Bathinda will get good money if it sells its existing land and shift to other place. It will solve the problem and would give money to Bathinda MC as well, he added.

The MLA also said that when this plant was initiated, he had proposed that it should be established at some village on the outskirts instead of its existing spot which is located in a residential area.

In 2015, the construction work of the plant, spread on 30 acres was completed at a cost of Rs 28 crore, where the city had been dumping garbage for the past three decades. Since then, residents of over 20 colonies have been up in arms against the plant as the stench emanating from the plant was unbearable and posed a health hazard to residents. Mati Dass Nagar, Nacchatar Nagar, Jogi Nagar, Harbans Nagar, Housefed Colony, Guru Ki Nagri, Deep Nagar, Silver Colony and ITI are the most affected from the plant.

This plant was initiated by the SAD-BJP-led state government and after it started, it faced strong opposition from residents. In 2016, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal (then deputy CM) held a meeting with Bathinda DC and directed to find a suitable site for its relocation. Similarly, in 2018, Bathinda DC had written a letter to the MC for shifting this plant but to date, the plant has not been shifted and this irks the residents.

This plant was state’s first municipal solid waste treatment plant and was constructed after a long legal battle in the National Green Tribunal (NGT).

The waste treatment project under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode was designed to manage 350 tonnes of municipal waste every day from the cluster of 18 urban local bodies of southern Punjab districts of Mansa, Muktsar and Fazilka besides Bathinda, but failed to start fully as Bathinda MC got entangled in an arbitration in 2019 over claims of its poor working.

Presently, the Bathinda civic body is collecting about 120 tonnes of waste and transporting it to the processing site daily.

CAPACITY TO TREAT 350 TONNES OF WASTE

• This waste treatment plant, initiated by the SAD-BJP-led state government, faced strong opposition from residents. In 2016, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal (then deputy CM) held a meeting with Bathinda DC and directed to find a suitable site for its relocation. Similarly, in 2018, Bathinda DC had written a letter to the MC for shifting this plant but to date, the plant has not been shifted
• The project was designed to manage 350 tonnes of municipal waste every day from the cluster of 18 urban local bodies of southern Punjab districts of Mansa, Muktsar and Fazilka besides Bathinda
• Presently, the civic body is collecting about 120 tonnes of waste and transporting it to the processing site daily

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