Panchkula: Residents of Jhuriwala write to NGT panel on garbage dumping issue

Panchkula, July 9

With their repeated appeals to the administration to not dump the solid waste at Jhuriwala village falling on deaf ears, local residents have sent a representation to a monitoring committee of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in Mohali seeking its intervention.

The letter, dispatched by the Citizen Committee, House Owner’s Welfare Association, Sector 25, today, alleges “Gross violation of the Solid Waste Rules, 2016, and irreversible damage to the environment by the Municipal Corporation, Panchkula, at Jhuriwala village.’’

It states: “That around 2003-04, the Haryana Urban Development Authority or HUDA (now HSVP) and the Municipal Corporation of Panchkula (MCP) started utilising open area measuring about 12 acres in Sector 23, Panchkula, for dumping solid waste generated by the town. This illegal site is in close proximity to the Khol-Hai-Raitan Wildlife Sanctuary, residential areas and religious sites. Thereafter, for over a past decade, the MCP and HSVP have been attempting to set up a solid waste management plant at a site at Jhuriwala village. This site of 12/13 acres is again close to inhabited residential areas, is next to a declared wildlife sanctuary and has a choe passing through it. This choe joins another choe (Nandana Choe) which ultimately joins the Ghaggar river. The gradient again is towards the Ghaggar river. Thus, if a solid waste management plant is set up at this site, the flow of natural water to the Ghaggar river shall also be affected as one of its seasonal sources will get blocked.”

The residents claimed no fresh environmental clearance had been obtained by the civic authorities from the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for dumping solid waste at the village. — TNS