Chandigarh, September 29: The row over waste collection in Chandigarh reached the Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday as private collecters moved a petition challenging the municipal corporation’s decision to take over their work.
The high court has put both the MC and the Chandigarh administration on notice, seeking their reply during the hearing on October 15.
Terming MC’s decision as ‘illegal’, the petitioners said “the MC has behaved in a manner worse than the East India Company, which annexed India by force for personal gain only.”
The collectors stated “they were doing a fine job to the satisfaction of all the authorities but now suddenly have been thrown without any consultation, which is the violation of the Centre’s solid waste management policy.”
They stated that “MC was duty bound to follow consultation process and failure to do so made the complete process void in the eyes of the law.”
The petition also challenged the administration’s recent notification of the solid waste management policy, which they formulated after the Supreme Court’s reprimand, saying as per the Centre’s rules, Chandigarh is required to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) on how they absorb the existing garbage collectors in the system, which they did not follow.
The petitioners also accused the MC of stopping the well-established system of garbage collection in Chandigarh by force on the poor garbage collectors who have now been deprived of their livelihood.
They also added that after taking over the waste collection, the MC pushed the entire city into chaos with a big threat of outbreak of diseases at the fag end of monsoon season.
The whole city, they said, is full of garbage because of the MC’s decision and the filth is posing a great threat to the health and welfare of the city residents.
They called the municipal corporation’s decision a deep-rooted conspiracy to take control of the business of garbage collection, which is very profitable and then give it to private players who will dictate the terms after privatisation and burden the common man.
The petition sought the court’s intervention in restraining the civic body from committing such serious violation of fundamental rights of the poor waste collectors.
Source Hindustan Times
