ISLAMABAD – After the removal of encroachments by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), the civic body is facing another challenge to find permanent dumping site in the federal capital. As per details, the federal capital, with a population of about 1.5 million, generates almost 600 to 700 tons of garbage a day but there is no permanent dumping site to dispose this huge amount of garbage.
The CDA is struggling to introduce an effective and modern system of waste management on permanent basis to resolve this problem but these efforts seem useless. The authority which cherishes its slogan “Clean and Green Islamabad” has failed so far to comply with this motto even after having a budget of over Rs 28 billion.
In 2006, the CDA planned to construct a landfill site at Kurri village on over 100 acres of land, but the residents and environmentalists moved the court for hazardous impacts on health and since then the fate of the project had been hanging in balance. Another project for dumping garbage in an open area of H-10 sector, opposite to the two residential sectors, is exposing citizens to several kinds of diseases.
A bad smell arousing from heaps of garbage dumped in sector H-10 and trash trolleys in various residential areas show that how much concerned the civic body is about its drive for cleanliness. The residents and visitors are of the view that it has become more a source of diseases than dumping site and should be immediately removed from there. CDA spokesman Ramzan Sajid said the survey was underway to find suitable place for setting up a modern and permanent landfill site.
He added that once the survey completed, the CDA would complete the project of setting up permanent garbage dumping site in a year. He further said the existing dumping site was being shifted from G-10 sector to the area between I-16 and I-17 sectors temporarily and the process would be completed within 15 days. One-year project had been given to the Fauji Cement Corporation till the commissioning of permanent landfill site, the spokesman said adding that the contract would be extended after one year.