BHUBANESWAR: Continuing its agitation for the ninth consecutive day over waste dumping at the temporary transit station (TTS) near Sainik School, the state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday demanded an immediate visit of the technical team to the site to check contamination of groundwater and piped water supply in the area.
BJP spokesperson Dillip Mohanty who visited the site along with the party’s district president Babu Singh and other leaders and workers to take stock of the situation said the waste yard that has become a major cause of air pollution in the area and has now increased the risk of water contamination as the supply pipes pass through the site.
“We also saw the leachate flowing from the trash hill after rain, is also contaminating the soil and groundwater,” Mohanty said demanding an immediate solution to the issue. He further alleged in the name of landfilling, BMC has started dumping legacy waste in different wards of the city creating an unhygienic atmosphere in the city. “This should be stopped immediately,” Mohanty said. The BJP leaders said their protest will continue as long as the waste from the site is not cleared and the area is vacated.
BMC officials, on the other hand, said the processing of garbage is being carried out scientifically and all legacy waste at the site will be cleared within the deadline. The height of the garbage hill has been reduced by seven metres after waste processing was started on a war footing basis.
“Over 1,600 tonne of waste is being processed at the site regularly and this way we hope to process all the waste in a couple of months,” said officials of BMC following a visit of Mayor Sulochana Das and other corporators to the site on Wednesday.