Thursday, 25 August 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
The locals held a protest rally against the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) and district administration in Selaqui area on Wednesday against the alleged irregularities in solid waste management and recycling plant at Sheeshambada. After the locals protesting outside the plant did not let the garbage-carrying vehicles enter the plant premises for two days, the MCD officials and Vikasnagar sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Vinod Kumar along with the police removed the protesters to dump the garbage in the plant earlier on Tuesday night. According to the officials, heaps of garbage were accumulating in the garbage stations which do not have enough capacity to hold the garbage of the whole city. They said that despite various efforts to convince the protestors by senior officials, locals did not let the vehicles enter the plant so they took the assistance of the police.
On the other hand, the locals said that the amount of garbage continues to increase daily in the plant and despite several promises over the months, the situation keeps getting worse with time. A local resident and member of Pachwadoon Sanyukt Samiti, Chaitanya Anil Gaur said that the chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had instructed the Dehradun district magistrate to take action on shifting the plant and they also have made several rounds of the offices of every department concerned but nothing is being done on the matter. “We have been raising our voice for our basic rights to live in a clean and healthy place. All we want is written assurance that the plant will be shifted from Sheeshambada within three months. If the officials consider this period to be less, they can tell us a time as per their planning but they are not ready to say anything concrete on the matter,” said Gaur. According to the locals, they felt agitated when the MCD and SDM brought the police force to the plant late Tuesday night to remove the local protestors like they were some serious offenders. However, they said that they will continue their protest till the officials take concrete action on the matter. Meanwhile, the officials informed that the MCD did not send its garbage-carrying vehicles to the Sheeshambada plant in the daylight as per the schedule on Wednesday to avoid conflict with the protesting locals. They decided to send them in the late evening.
