Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Nov 10: In an embarrassment for the Pahalgam Development Authority, the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has detected shortcomings in the proposal for establishing municipal solid waste landfill site at Pahalgam, which was one of the recommendations of the Supreme Court-mandated Special High Powered Committee. As the EAC has deferred the proposal for want of deficiencies, the Authority may not be able to implement the recommendation in near future.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that Supreme Court-mandated Special High Powered Committee, in its numerous recommendations vis-à-vis Shri Amarnathji Yatra management, had last year stressed for creation of infrastructure for sanitary and environmentally safe facilities for disposal of municipal solid waste at Pahalgam, the base camp of annual yatra to cave shrine.
After sleeping over the recommendation for quite long time, the Pahalgam Development Authority prepared a proposal for establishing municipal solid waste landfill site and submitted the same to the Expert Appraisal Committee of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests as such projects are required to be cleared at this forum.
In the proposal, the Pahalgam Development Authority mentioned that since Pahalgam being well-known tourist destination receives more than six lakh tourists annually and a huge infrastructure comprising of different categories of hotels, guest houses, tourist huts, shopping complexes and other administrative buildings has been developed to cater to different tourist services. Therefore, solid waste and its management is one of the major environmental problem confronted in this tourist town, which also becomes hub for the Amarnath Yatra.
Proposing landfill site at village Khelan Gujran, the Development Authority stated in the proposal that this site has the capacity of handling 9.52 ton solid waste per day. Giving breakup, the proposal said that total solid waste generation from tourist population, from Pahalgam town and Amarnath Yatra is 84.80 ton per day out of which 0.27 ton per day is recyclable. Solid waste for composting at site within the city and near the base camps of the Yatra is 75 ton per day.
After going through the proposal, the Expert Appraisal Committee in its recent meeting observed, “the entire facility consists of 2 composting sites and one landfill facility. The present proposal is only for landfill site and the site for other 2 facilities has not been selected yet”.
While recommending deferring of the proposal, the EAC said, “the Development Authority should come up with an integrated plan showing collection, transportation and disposal facilities (2 composting facilities and one landfill facility) along with the options of technologies for the disposal of the waste”.
According to the sources, the EAC has also felt that in view of the vast quantities of animal excreta (ponies etc) throughout the year, the possibility of biogas generation be also studied during summer months. “The huge tourist sewage load management may also be explained without contaminating the environment”, sources said quoting the EAC observations.
Sources further said, “before placing proposal before the EAC the Pahalgam Development Authority should have carried out detailed exercise as pointed out by the Committee as more than a year has already elapsed since the Supreme Court-mandated Special High Powered Committee made recommendation in this regard”.
“The onus will be only on the Pahalgam Development Authority in case certain voices are raised in future about environment degradation due to disposal of municipal solid waste in most un-scientific manner”, sources said.
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