Our Correspondent
Ludhiana (March 27)
Today, activists from the Public Action Committee (PAC) and functionaries of Council of Engineers (CoE) protested outside the Maharishi Valmiki Nagar colony resident of Mayor Balkar Sing Sandhu to voice their resentment at officials of the Municipal Corporation and Punjab Pollution Control Boards (PPCB) who allegedly manipulate facts and provide incorrect data in the District Environment Plan.
In a complaint filed to the Punjab Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, and CoE, the PAC/CoE claimed that this act had resulted in loss of public money. They had procured substandard machinery and allowed contractors to lay substandard streets in the city over the past six months. Protesters demanded a thorough investigation, audit and review of substandard machinery purchased by the MC as well as failure of the PPCB and other agencies to reduce the pollution.
Activists from the PAC and CoE complained that the District Environment Plan, which was prepared jointly by PPCB and MC, and submitted to National Green Tribunal regarding works done in relation to issues like solid waste management and construction waste, contained misleading facts and figures.
They claimed that the DEP claims about segregation at 50 percent domestic waste, manual sweeping of public areas, markets twice daily, and mechanical road sweeping, marginal gaps in collection and disposal, adequate fleet for transportation of segregated refuse, removal of garbage vulnerable point (GVPs), and their conversion to greenbelts, were false and distorted.
Similarly, there is no CCTV camera installed at dumping locations. The static compactors procured by the MC to allow for easy disposal at secondary dumping places are sub-standard and many of these are non-functional.
Like the MC the PPCB also has faltered in performance, and the ground reality is in contradiction to the DEP’s claims. “The PPCB has installed only one Air Quality Monitoring Station (AQMS), that too on PAU campus, while the worst polluted sites like Industrial Focal Point and Industrial Areas have been ignored. Similarly, claim made about floodplain zoning carried out by the Drainage Department (Department of Irrigation) is also a falsehood,” said the complaint.
Protesting activists have asked the government for a thorough investigation into the role played by the MC and PPCB in drafting incorrect DEPs, projecting incorrect data, wastage by procuring substandard machinery and equipment, as well as laying poor quality roads throughout the city.
Among the prominent protestors were Kapil Arora (CoE president), Jaskirat Singh Khaira (PAC member), Vikas Arora. Ravinder Singh and Mohit Saggar (Col (retd). CM Lakhanpal).