Pune: Without fearing the environmental damage and ignoring the problems faced by the residents, the Wagholi Gram Panchayat (GP) is planning to acquire an area where the daily garbage can be dumped. This move has been taken as there is only one garbage processing unit out of the two which is functioning and that too with its half capacity. Residents are going to meet the district collector over the issue.
A special Gram Sabha held in September 2018 passed a resolution to set up two garbage processing unit at Wagholi to process over 60 tonnes of garbage in a scientific way on a daily basis. The work on setting up the first plant was expected to start in January 2019.
According to Sarpanch of Wagholi GP Shivdas Ubale, every day, Wagholi generates more than 40 tonnes of garbage. Two garbage processing plants were set up in January at Wagheshwar Nagar and Choki Dhani road. Both the processing plants are of the capacity to process 40 to 45 tonnes garbage. In a recent incident, huge piles of garbage were dumped on the roadside at Bakore Chowk in Wagholi. Kiran Mankawale, Chairman of Neo City situated at Bakore Chowk, said, “From last three weeks, Bakore Chowk has become the new dumping yard and no action is being taken to clean it even after several complaints.”
Director of Wagholi Residents Association, Nitinkumar Jain, said, “Not only Bakore Chowk but the whole Nagar stretch which comes under Wagholi has turned into garbage dumping spots. We have been following up with the GP from more than one year now to set up a fully functional garbage processing plant but they are ignoring our plea.” Jain claimed that it has been over a month now that the GP has not picked up garbage from the societies. Both the processing plants are shut. Only in January, the garbage processing plant in Wagheshwar Nagar was functioning, but after that, it stopped functioning.
While Ubale said, “The GP is collecting garbage from every society. The Wagheshwar processing plant is functioning only with 15 tonnes capacity since there are technical glitches. There is no contractor to run the second plant on Choki Dhani road. Hotels, restaurants, local shop owners and vegetable vendors are dumping the garbage daily at midnight. We are planning to acquire an area, where the daily garbage which is not getting processed, can be dumped.”
Ubale also said that the GP is looking out for a security agency where security guards will be deployed at places where open dumping is carried out.
Residents unhappy
