Who will clean Amritsar? Bio-remediation yet to begin at Bhagtanwala
For more than 10 years, local residents and social activists in Amritsar have been protesting against the 22-acre dumping ground where more than 20 lakh metric tonne (MT) of garbage is piled up since the 1990s but no relief is in sight. Around 500 MT of garbage arrives at the dumping site every day and the heaps are getting bigger. In summer, when methane gas produced from the legacy waste catches fire, the high flames force the MC officials and local politicians to reach the Bhagtanwala dump site. They often make tall promises to shift the dump away from the city, adopt modern technology to process the garbage and speed up the bio-remediation process. But the promises are forgotten as soon as the flames are extinguished.
The civic body had started dumping waste at Bhagtanwala in the 1990s, on around 20 acres of land, adjoining the grain market. Upset over air pollution and the stink, residents of Bhagtanwala have been demanding since 2006 that the dump yard be relocated. In 2014, a Sangharsh Committee formed by the local residents started demonstrations with a demand to shift the dump. But despite promises, the SAD-BJP government failed to shift the dump but vacated a few acres of land. Then senior Congress leaders assured the residents that the dump would be shifted if the party comes to power in state. Capt Amarinder Singh had assured at Bhadrakali Mandir that the dump yard would be shifted and it was also mentioned in the Congress election manifesto. Manpreet Badal promised to construct a hospital for chest and respiratory diseases on the vacated land of the dump. But during five years of Congress rule, no effort was made.
The promise to shift the dump was not fulfilled but the proposal for bio-remediation of garbage did come up during the Congress rule, which proved to be mere eyewash. The solid waste management company installed the machines but did not operate them.
Bio-remediation is one of the major components of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had also directed the civic body to initiate bio-remediation of garbage in 2019. Despite tall claims, the MC has failed to get any significant result from the process so far. The MC had started the bio-remediation of garbage at the Bhagtanwala dump in 2020 and installed Trimble machines and ballistic separators to segregate the waste. But nothing has been achieved till date.
Sanjay Sharma, a member of the Sangharsh Committee protesting against the dump, said: “Instead of removing the garbage, the government has piled up more waste in the past years. Three governments have changed but no one came up with a solution.”
PS Bhatty, president, Pollution Control Committee, said, “There were two MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) dumps, one at Naraingarh and the other at Jhabal Road. Both happened to be near the landing and take-off runway at the Raja Sansi airport in Amritsar. Since Raja Sansi was to come up as an international airport, both dumps were closed and a vacant piece of AIT land, transferred to the Municipal Corporation, was started as municipal solid waste (MSW) dump without obtaining an NOC from the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB). The NOC obtained for Bhagtanwala from airport authorities was for three years but that too has now expired. The authorities have not renewed it since the site at Bhagtanwala was against the rules as the dump is on the same chunk of land on which Bhagtanwala grain market is situated. There was no wall or even a demarcation line in between. The authorities have failed to provide a green belt around it, rather there is no space to do that.”
