The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday directed the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation (MC) to file a specific affidavit from the municipal commissioner stating the city’s waste-processing capacity and giving an undertaking that no waste generated in Chandigarh is being dumped elsewhere.
Consequently, a proposal for an additional plant had been shelved. “The dump there from the mountains has been reduced. Sharma also questioned the repeated extensions of timelines for establishing adequate processing facilities. The chief justice after hearing both sides observed that the court wanted the factual position placed on record with clarity. The matter will be listed next Thursday.
Appearing for the MC, senior advocate Gaurav Mohunta informed the court that the upgraded processing capacity at Dadumajra waste plant was approximately 450 tonnes per day and that the quantity of waste being received (about 200 tonnes of wet waste and 100 tonnes of dry waste daily) was well within this capacity. He pointed out that MC had earlier assured the court of resolution by 2022, later shifted the deadline to 2024 and then to 2026, and still lacked a clear line of sight for a permanent solution.
However, in the same breath, they are throwing dump elsewhere,” he told the court. “We don’t want your waste to be dumped elsewhere, either in Chandigarh or in Punjab or Haryana,” he said, making it clear that merely shifting waste from Dadumajra to another location could not be treated as a solution.
The chief justice also reminded the parties that the proceedings are not adversarial and directed them to be forthright in their statements before the court.
