CUTTACK: Twenty-two years have passed since formation of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC), but the civic body is yet to have a separate environment wing to look into the city’s beautification and plantation activities or take steps to check pollution.
The Cuttack municipality was upgraded to a municipal corporation in 2003. Accordingly, as per rule 124 of the Odisha Municipal Corporation Act 2003, every corporation must have an environment officer to perform duties assigned to him by the commissioner in accordance with the resolution of the corporation concerning the overall ecology of the area under its jurisdiction, and shall be responsible for complying with the directions of the government to protect the environment from pollution.
However, 22 years have passed but the corporation has not taken any step to form a separate environment wing of its own even as its counterpart in Bhubaneswar has one. In such a situation, the sanitation wing has since been in charge of managing the city’s environment issues till date.
Concerned over the same, some city-based environmental activists opined that it was high time the civic body had an environment wing of its own. “In the absence of an environment officer, pollution scenario in the city is getting worse with every passing day. While there is no check on old vehicles which significantly contribute to carbon emission, dumping of garbage into water bodies have become a cause of concern,” they added.
CMC Commissioner Anam Charan Patra and mayor Subhas Singh could not be reached for their comments.