In the name of development, the contractors of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) have adopted a criminal way of destroying the existing green cover across the city. For, they have started choking full grown trees by dumping construction material and other debris around the tree trunk. Despite pressing reportage by The Hitavada and protests by citizens, the civic body is deliberately ignoring the issue of environment conservation by unabatedly choking trees by dumping construction and demolition (C&D) waste around trees all over the city. The sight of C&D waste dumped around the tree trunk has become common and a new normal in many areas, including Ram Nagar Cement Road, Bajaj Nagar, South Ambazari Road, Abhyankar Nagar, etc.

 

One can witness choking of roadside trees even in prime localities while the civic body remains undeterred and unconcerned towards the serious issue of depleting green cover in the city. NMC made the C&D waste recycling plant in Bhandewadi functional but the concrete reality of its purpose is far from different. The civic body recycles construction waste after collecting it throughout the city.

 

This newly-functional plant is the only such C&D waste recycling plant in Central India which has the capacity to process 150 metric tonne waste daily. Despite availability of the facility in the city, the contractors are finding it easy to dump the waste by the roadside, choking lungs of the city — the trees. In 2022, a Hyderabad-based firm — Hyderabad C&D Waste Pvt Ltd had started construction of the plant on 5 acres land in Bhandewadi landfill site. It will process C&D waste to produce five types of bio-products. The by-products of the plant will be used by government departments including NMC’s town planning department, NMRDA, CPWD, NIT, PWD, Maha Metro etc. for their various projects. Unfortunately, Nagpur comes in the non-attainment city’s list of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for poor air quality. Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) launched National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in which CPCB prepared the list of all cities in the country with poor air quality and Nagpur is also in the list. Therefore, with the help of CSIR-NEERI, NMC prepared the city’s environment plan as per the guidelines of NCAP.

 

The C&D waste recycling plant in Bhandewadi was a project under the same environment plan to reduce the impact of dust in city. However, avoiding the proper mitigation of reducing construction waste from city by the civic body itself is a matter of question over the newly launched project. Before the C-20 Summit that held in city last year, the NMC rampantly did construction work throughout the city. The Hitavada and people of Nagpur raised their voice against the choking of trees with concrete that time also. As a result, the civic body woke-up and de-choked the trees. The startling worries — Why the civic body always ignores the city’s environment and give importance to development works? Why the administration has no vision to adopt sustainable development to conserve the city’s natural assets?