In the absence of proper disposal of construction and demolition (C&D) waste being generated from the city, heaps of this waste can be seen lying in every nook and corner of the city. The municipal corporation (MC) is yet to complete the construction of the C&D waste plant in Dhandhari for the past many months, and even now the officials claim it will see its completion by March, next year.
The project was planned under Smart City Mission and it took more than one year to start the work at the site. The officials blamed that there were dead animals lying at that vacant space, so they had to remove those first, and now the site was handed over to the contractor for starting the work. They added that for machinery too, orders were already placed, but it would be installed when the civil work gets completed.
The monitoring committee formed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the civic officials to complete this project as soon as possible, but the work was still pending.
The civic body had fixed six sites to prevent people from dumping their construction waste arising out of new construction of houses, commercial units or from renovation, in the city parks, green belts, or the banks of the canal. The sites are located at Chandigarh Road, Dhandhari Kalan, Rahon Road, Barewal, Jugiana and Kanganwal.
The waste, however, can be seen lying around Buddha Nullah, abandoned green belts, Model Town Extension, and Dugri, because people dump the C&D waste wherever they find the space.
One of the officials claimed that it took time to get rid of the dead animals from the land, but now the work has started. He said the deadline was fixed for March 2023 and after that, machinery would be installed and it would be made functional. Notably, a delegation of MC officials and some councillors had visited the C&D waste plant at Indore last year, and they learnt how debris was crushed and converted into tiles for roads. The delegation had advised mayor Balkar Sandhu that even Ludhiana MC should do something like this because it is equally important to get rid of construction and demolition waste. However, no such decision was taken by the civic body.
Dilemma over success delayed plant work
With the civic officials facing difficulties in initiating the carcass utilisation plant built in Noorpur village for the disposal of dead animals due to resentment amongst villagers, the officials did not start this C&D waste plant fearing similar consequences for the project, as well.
