Tuesday, 21 March 2023 | PNS | NAINITAL
Hearing on a public interest litigation seeking a ban on plastic waste in the State, the Uttarakhand High Court has directed the Panchayati Raj secretary to provide waste disposal facility in every Gram Panchayat and then submit a report in the court. The division bench of chief justice Vipin Sanghi and justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari also directed the State government to implement the plastic waste management rules according to which there is provision for penalty ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs two crore and present a report in the court.
The government was also directed to submit a separate affidavit regarding encroachment by persons on land allocated for waste disposal works. The court further directed the authorities to probe five days in a month the cases wherein garbage is littered in places. Representatives of the Uttarakhand Environment Protection and Pollution Control Board, police, Urban Development department and the district administration will also be involved in this. The HC also directed that fines should be imposed and collected from those guilty of littering and a report on the same should be presented in the court. The case will be taken up for hearing next on May 19.
During the hearing on Monday, the Urban Development secretary, Panchayati Raj secretary, Forest and Environment secretary along with Urban Development director were also present in the court. It was stated on their behalf that orders of the court are being implemented. The petitioner’s counsel Dushyant Mainyuli informed the court that some people had encroached upon the land allocated for waste disposal. Further, there is no facility for waste disposal in the villages, he added.
As per the case details, Almora resident Jitendra Yadav had filed the PIL stating that the State government had prepared the plastic use and plastic waste disposal rules in 2013 but the same are not being followed. The Centre had introduced the plastic waste management rules in 2018 under which the responsibility of the producer, transporter and vendors had been fixed and they are supposed to take back as much used plastic as they sell. They would provide fund to the local authority to dispose the plastic waste if they are unable to return the used plastic. However, these rules are being blatantly violated in Uttarakhand. There are heaps of plastic waste in the mountainous regions of the State and these are not being disposed of by the authorities, the petition states.
