PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Uttarkashi
The ongoing sit-in agitation against unauthorised garbage dumping near Tambakhani tunnel which has entered its 64th day has received a fresh momentum with the journalists affiliated with the Nationalist Union of Journalists (NUJ, Uttarakhand) lending its full support to the cause the movement has been fighting for.
They said at the protest site that the movement led by the social activist Gopinath Rawat deserved support from all and the dumping zone should be removed.
Addressing the protesters, the senior journalist and writer, Trilok Chandra Bhatt said that Uttarkashi enjoys an important place on the global religious tourism map through which the main route of the Char Dham Yatra passes. “So it is appalling that garbage heaped at the town’s entrance stinks. Besides, polythene and plastic piled here is polluting water, land and air aside from proving fatal to the mute animals,” he added.
The agitators said that the district administration and State Pollution Control Board are sleeping on the matter, reflecting apathy. Using a site near a religiously sensitive and densely populated area like Tambakhani as a dumping zone amounts to a clear violation of environmental standards and regulations, they said. They demanded digging a permanent trenching ground in Tiloth to solve the logjam once and for all.
