Abdul Basit
Bandipora March 09: While the government has failed to establish a Solid Waste management Plant in the urban areas, the situation in rural areas is even worse.
Though the urban local bodies are dumping the solid waste at specific locations, the rural areas have no fixed spots to dump solid waste thus giving freedom to people to dump anywhere with water bodies being the favorite spots to dump the waste.
Every Gram Panchayat in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was supposed to be covered under a comprehensive “solid waste management” campaign with the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha led administration set to provide one e-cart (Electric vehicle) to every gram-panchayat. The initiative was launched in 2022 but till date Bandipora has failed to implement campaign on ground.
Several villages of Bandipora district allege the concerned block level officers have failed to implement campaign on ground. Locals question who allows rural development department to dump solid waste on Srinagar –Bandipora road near Saderkooot on the banks of Wullar that witnesses a huge rush of traffic and paints an ugly pictuires of the district before visitors. “Every district officer travels on this road on daily basis and still no one till date took cognizance of the matter,” they added. “Same is the situation in every village”.
In the Bandipora district, a number of villages claim that the concerned block administrators were negligent and failed to implement the programme on the ground.
Due to the fact the natural resources are on the verge of extinction, it is alarming that villages in the district still experience the same pollution issues as they did before.
Online trolling by citizens is going on as they mock the administration for the campaign's poor execution. Online trolls regularly target Bandipora admin while administration has taken no concrete step till date to over the problem.
"It takes two to make a quarrel, not only administrators but Local citizens are also accountable for the failure of such excellent and commendable move of the Government for prevention of Natural resources," a local of Pazalpora village remarked.
While enumerating the issues being faced by them, locals said the allocated dustbins are relatively small and absence of pick up vans.
The salary of safai kramcharies (workers) is also not fixed as they are asked to collect Rs 100 per household where there will be no interference of Block admin or other authority.
Locals said the Panchayats built waste disposal trenches but are already filled despite the villagers were promised of regular waste transportation.
According to a social activist from the hamlet of Sumlar, "Solid waste management" is not being implemented by the administration properly and the situation in the villages is still the same as it was before the campaign was launched.
Village administrators should utilise the same methods used by municipalities to keep the entire town clean, yet none of Bandipora's block administrators appear to be taking their jobs seriously.
The administration should not take such issues lightly and require immediate intervention by the district administration.
According to a student of environmental studies from the Quil area of Bandipora, "Natural Resources are on merge of extinction in Kashmir, in earlier days we used to drink water from a nearby flowing stream that tuned to a small drainage like structure now due to this pollution," the student said.
Bandipora residents urged DC Bandipora Dr. Owais Ahmad to take prompt action in this regard.
