Chennai: Despite repeated directions of the National Green tribunal, a local body in South Chennai failed to adhere to the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) rules, 2016, and thus creating high inconvenience to residents.
It is a five-year-long struggle the Pammal residents who approached the southern bench of the National Green Tribunal to clear the 15 metric tonnes of garbage disposed of by the municipality, in a private property.
In a strategic move, the municipality, which cleared the mounts of garbage on the private property, has dumped the same on the adjacent vacant land.
The owner of the vacant land has approached the court and complained about the insensitive practice. After listening to the pleas and statements from the counsel of the applicant over the non-clearance, the bench comprising Justice M. Sasidharan Nambiar and expert member P S Rao warned the civic body to dispose of the waste, following the MSW rules and file the status report within 10 days. The counsel of the applicant was directed to file a status report.
A. P. Jagadish, secretary of the Mahalakshmi Nagar, Ranganathapuram, Vishweshwapuram Residents Association, told Deccan Chronicle about how the unauthorised dumpyard has made their life miserable.
“Solid waste was dumped in the survey numbers 147 – 154. The civic body has cleared the garbage at one side (survey no 153 and 154) and dumped it on the adjacent land. The burning of waste is also usual,” he said.
While the tribunal expressed disappointment at the Pammal municipality for providing the wrong details, representatives of the civic body attributed the delay to ‘lack of funds’ However, the bench refused to buy the reason as it asked the municipality to use the funds in clearing the garbage, rather than moving it to the adjacent land.
