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 Municipal bodies come 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, Housing and Urban Development Department 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.
The High Court has issued repeated directions for establishment of solid waste management facilities in all districts. It had also ordered 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. 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 projects 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 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 towns. Moreover, the orders of the High Court cannot be ignored or defied. 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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