ANANTNAG, Mar 21 2018
Violating all the norms, Municipal Committee Mattan in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district continues to dump tones of garbage in river Lidder.
Locals told that the Municipal Committee is dumping the garbage in sensitive water body- river Lidder- from past a decade and all concerned departments have never raised objections against this illegal practice. They said that illegall activity is posing a serious threat to ecology of the area and aquatic life in river Lidder.
“There is always a fear of outbreak of waterborne diseases due to dumping of municipal solid waste in the river,” local residents said, adding dozens of villages downstream Akura are using the river Lidder water for drinking purposes and most of the water supply schemes san filtration plants.
They said that the practice of dumping municipal waste in river Lidder has also endangered the aquatic life in the river. “Several complaints were lodged in the past many years with the district administration, but all in vain as the Municipal Committee was never asked to stop dumping garbage on river side,” Gulzar Ahmad, a local resident said.
He said that practice of dumping municipal waste in river could have serious consequences and could disturb the fragile ecology of the area and precious river Lidder.
Executive Officer Municipal Committee Mattan, Abdul Manan admitted that his staff was dumping the municipal waste near river Lidder. “It is going from past seven to ten years however the land where the municipal waste is being dumped is state land,” he said.
The officer that they will stop dumping the waste on river bank once the cluster dumping site in Anantnag gets functional.
Deputy Commissioner Anantnag Mohammad Younis Malik told that work on sewerage treatment plant in Uranhal for Anantnag and other Municipal committees had already started and administration had already taken steps to preserve water bodies.
“The estimated cost of sewerage treatment plant in Uranhal is 22 crores and it will cater all the waste,” he said, adding segregation of waste at sources has also been started.
