Staff Reporter
Dimapur, August 12 (EMN): Questions concerning the disposal of municipal garbage – both literally and metaphorically – that has been plaguing Dimapur for decades now could well be decided inside the courtroom, if latest indications are anything to go by.
The meeting held between the state’s Municipal Affairs department, led by its newly chosen parliamentary secretary, Zhaleo Rio, and member of Sunrise colony – where the Dimapur Mucipal Council’s garbage disposal plot is located – on Saturday at Circuit House, Dimapur failed to achieve any breakthrough.
After the closed-door meeting, the state government reiterated its argument that there was no alternative location available. The colony members however were of the view that they have no other alternative but to take the matter to court.
They however informed that passage of DMC trucks transporting accumulated garbage towards the disposal ground would not be restricted for now, while sharing that the matter would better be solved inside a courtroom. A PIL regarding this is expected to be filed very soon.According to Rio, the state government was not looking for confrontation with the colony residents. He claimed that “as of now there was no alternative dumping site”. The parliamentary secretary said that the state government was planning on availing “more dumping sites”, but could not “immediately” acquire lands.
The people, he claimed, were not willing to ‘part’ with their lands.
On the current tussle between the DMC and residents of Sunrise colony in Dimapur, he wished that ‘good sense’ would prevail. “We don’t want to give false assurances”, he said while asserting that the department has shared with the people “what is practical, (and) what is pragmatic”.
He was however of the view that the ‘shifting’ of the DMC garbage disposal site from its current location at Sunrise colony, as demanded by the residents, “may not be a good proposal”. Rio reasoned that the entire disposal system must be ‘de-centralised’.
“We have to go to other areas so that the entire garbage is not dumped there”, he said while adding that he was not happy with the way the DMC was “doing the operation and maintenance”.
He also conceded that the residents of Sunrise colony ‘have every reason to be annoyed’, considering how the state government had supplied them with ‘repeated assurances’. According to him, they are the ‘aggrieved party’.
Rio declared that the question of shifting the current garbage disposal site does not arise since there was no alternative location.
He also said that the installation of a solid waste management plant at the current DMC garbage disposal site would be completed within one year, while claiming that apprehensions voiced by the residents of the colony were simply out of ‘ignorance’.
