NAGPUR: Continuing efforts to solve the problem of high pollution at
Bhandewadi dumping yard, mayor Anil Sole has directed officials of Nagpur Municipal Corporation
(NMC) to inspect proposed sites for dump yards in the metro region and
submit a report within a week. Meanwhile, East Nagpur MLA and BJP city
president Krishna Khopde is upset over NMC’s plan to continue the existing dumping yard at Bhandewadi for the next 10 years at least.

To shift the city’s only dumping yard at Bhandewadi, NMC requires at
least 600 acres land outside the city limits, that too in five different
locations. Nagpur Improvement Trust
(NIT), which is the planning authority for metro region, has identified
six sites for dump yards in the metro region, which is being planned.
NIT chairman Praveen Darade
had in a meeting on July 13 asked NIT officials to form a committee
including officials from NIT, NMC, MPCB and Neeri, to inspect the sites
for feasibility and technical examination. But the matter has been
pending since then.

Khopde, who has probably set a target to
shift the Bhandewadi dumping yard out of the city before 2014 Assembly
elections, requested Sole to continue pressing for the new sites. Sole
held a meeting with NMC officials on Friday and asked them to form the
committee, inspect the sites and submit a report within a week.

Sources in NMC told TOI that Sole asked officiating municipal commissioner and collector Saurabh Rao
to take special interest in the issue. “Rao assured to form the
committee and convene a meeting in couple of days. The NMC officials,
though, are stressing on the inability to shift the dumping yard for at
least 10 years considering the life of garbage treatment plant and two
new landfill sites developed at the dumping yard,” said sources.

Khopde told TOI the dumping yard will have to shift after developing
the new sites in metro region. “Whatever the situation at Bhandewadi
dumping yard, the NMC cannot play with the lives of citizens residing
near the dumping yard,” he said.

A senior NMC official said NMC
had directed the private agency which operates and maintains the garbage
treatment plant to comply from August 1 with the recommendations
submitted by Neeri.