Vexed by piling waste, residents dump garbage at Panchkula MC office

Irked by the civic body’s failure to clear the Jhuriwala and Section 23, Panchkula garbage dump sites, residents of Trans Ghaggar sector on Friday dumped garbage outside the municipal corporation office, Sector 14.
They also warned of larger protest in case the waste dumping continues at Jhuriwala and no candidate will be allowed to enter the area for the upcoming elections.
The residents alleged that for the past 20-25 years, residents of Sector-23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and Moginand and Madanpur villages are facing issues owing to the Sector 23 and Jhuriwala dumping grounds.
“For several years, the entire city’s waste has been dumped in the Trans Ghaggar sectors causing local residents to face issues like foul smell, polluted water,and other problems. Despite numerous requests to the Haryana government, local legislators, and the municipal corporation, there has been no progress in shifting the dumping ground from the area,” said a resident Mohit Gupta.
It may be mentioned that MC in April this year had submitted before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that 100% of daily generated waste is remediated and that the legacy waste, which was lying at Jhuriwala site, has been cleared and the legacy waste lying at Sector-23, Panchkula site is yet to be cleared.
Advocate Nitesh Mittal, convenor of the Sangram Jhuriwala dumping ground committee, Panchkula, stated that despite strong objections from local residents and orders from the NGT in November 2022, the Panchkula MC continued dumping at Jhuriwala by making it the only Material Recovery Facility (MRF) site for the entire city. “The MC has failed to find an alternative site for dumping over the past two to two and a half years. Additionally, the civic body’s proposal to create 6 MRF sites in 2023 remains stuck in bureaucratic processes,” added Mittal.
“Residents of this area are forced to live in polluted air and drink contaminated water, which poses a serious threat to their health. The MC has disappointed the public with false claims and broken promises. Moreover, the MC has also failed to provide other basic amenities to the local residents,” said Sanjeev Goyal, president of resident welfare association (RWA), Sector 25, Panchkula.
Despite hours of protest, no senior official or the mayor came to address the people’s grievances. Though municipal corporation’s deputy municipal commissioner Apoorva Chaudhary assured the residents that a meeting with the MC will be held next Friday to resolve the issue.