Chandigarh Municipal Corporation is determined to work on waste management by April 30.
Chandigarh is warming up for the upcoming Lok Sabha election in UT. Waste removal, one of the major concerns of the MC is in the process of improvement. Chandigarh MC is dedicating the coming days to enhance Chandigarh’s waste management by April 30.
Dadu Majra is the main dump of Chandigarh city. It generates around 550-600 MT of solid waste every day. However, all the solid waste is unprocessed which leads to heaps of waste in the area.
Therefore, the dump is a major issue for the upcoming Lok Sabha election in Chandigarh. Keeping in mind the urgency of the situation, the UT Municipality has set a deadline of 30 April for clearing the legacy waste.
According to the MC data, bioremediation has eliminated waste since 2022. It is a process through which biological organisms are used to eliminate waste. Through the process over 11 LMT (lakh metric tonne) of garbage has been removed.
The remaining waste, adding up to 2 LMT, will be removed by April 30. The MC aims to break the cycle of legacy waste. MC says that since the establishment of a composting plant in Dadu Majra, all the wet and dry waste has been processed. No fresh garbage has been dumped since then in Dadu Majra.
However, BJP and APP are both taking credit for initiating the clearance of the legacy waste. Mayor Kuldeep Kumar has said that development in Dadu Majra has picked up pace under his authority.
Whereas, BJP Councillor Maheshinder Singh Sidhu said that it was all the efforts of the central government in the past years that funded the project. What makes it such a big issue is the fact that after it gets cleared, both parties will take credit for it.
The centre had approved Rs 28 crore for the 70 crore project. The National Clean Air Programme funded another Rs 11 Crore to the Chandigarh MC for the project. Thus, the total funding has exponentially decreased the burden on MC. It has been reduced to Rs 31 crore.
Furthermore, MC has requested the central government to help reduce the remaining cost of Rs 31 crore which it has to bear. The project to remove the waste from Dadu Majra was initiated in September 2022 under the tenure of BJP Mayor Sarabjit Kaur.
The project had a 43-month duration. It might be completed within 26-28 months under the guidance of Mayor Kuldeep Kumar, keeping in mind the upcoming election in the city on June 1.
The project leads to the biomining of the garbage that produces refuse-derived fuel (RDF), along with inert material and soil. This sustainable project reduces the generation of greenhouse gases which serve as major pollutants in the air.
Furthermore, all three substances that will be produced, would help in major areas. RDF will be used to generate electricity, the inert material will help with sanitary landfills, whereas soil will be used in the agricultural sector. This will increase the productivity of the fields.
Clearing out the Dadu Majra dump is a great initiative towards sustainability. However, once it is completed, both BJP and AAP will take credit for it, which might affect the election campaign of both parties.
