Management of solid waste on scientific and modern lines is among the basic facilities and requirements of a developing town. As towns and cities in the country become overpopulated for various reasons, and more importantly because of large scale migration from rural to urban areas, the need and importance of management of solid waste in the towns and cities has attained great importance and urgency. The Municipal Corporation/ Committee is the organization that has to take care of management of the waste. The MC comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The issue of management of solid waste has been hanging fire for many years. Regrettably, Jammu Municipal Corporation has not so far taken any concrete step in this direction.
Everybody knows that if solid waste is not disposed off in proper and scientific manner, it is a big source of health hazard. We are surprised how the Government can tolerate the source of public health hazard remain in place and sit on the entire issue as if nothing is happening. There is a PIL with the State High Court demanding that solid waste management should be extended to the districts as well. Soon after Narendra Modi came to power he launched the Swachh Bharat scheme, which was given enormous media hype. Solid waste management has to be part of the mega scheme of clean India. But we do not find palpable impact of the scheme in Jammu and non-disposal of solid waste through scientific method is a proof of that.
The High Court Bench has issued no fewer than three reminders to the Department of Housing and Urban Department to take necessary steps in this direction but all these instructions have fallen on flat ears. In a recent communication the High Court Bench had ordered the Divisional Commissioner of Jammu that arrangement of scientific disposal of solid waste on district level should be speedily made and status report given to the court. The Divisional Commissioner was asked to prepare Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) in respect of each district in Jammu Division. Sadly, no DPR has been prepared so far. Leave DPR, even land acquisition task has not been begun in any of the districts of Jammu Division except that of District Udhampur. Strangely, though land has been earmarked and acquired in Udhampur district, but the DPR has not been prepared. We fail to understand why the Government and especially the Department of Housing and Rural Development is soft-paddling on the issue and is not understanding the urgency of saving Jammu and the entire region from pollutants carried by winds.
We are told that the reason for not proceeding with this task is that the Government has paucity of funds. Only 25 per cent of expenditure on this head will be reimbursed by the Union Government and the remaining 75 per cent has to be met by the Department of Housing and Rural Development. We are not sure even if entire expenditure was borne by the Central Government, whether the project would even be taken up and bought to completion within time frame. The State Government has to raise funds either through its own sources or by floating the Public Private Partnership mode or tapping some other lending agency. District headquarters of all Jammu districts are fast expanding. New settlements are coming up because there is momentum in economic activity. Population is growing fast and visible change is taking place in the life style of people. The Government cannot take shelter behind the pretext of paucity of funds for providing solid management system to the district towns. Moreover, the orders of the High Court cannot be ignored or defied. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has already caused anguish to the High Court and we would advise the authorities to shun their lackadaisical attitude and come forward with positive proposals for raising funds and undertaking the task of scientific management of solid waste in all the districts of Jammu division.
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