Of a lazy, sleepy, sloppy civic administration !

 

 

The rules -- Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules -- are clear: There must be a buffer zone around every garbage dumping yard. However, at the Bhandewadi Dump-Yard on the eastern fringe of Nagpur, this part of the rule cannot just be implemented. For, as even a street urchin in the city knows, years ago, the fringes of Bhandewadi yard were encroached upon by people who built their ‘pukka’ houses -- no matter the stench and the filth of the mountains of garbage in the yard just outside their compound walls. On those fringes of the yard, there should have been a buffer zone where no biotic interference should have been allowed. But the people encroached upon those fringes of the Bhandewadi Dump-Yard while the administration slept -- over years.

 

Now, even one casual look at the mountains of garbage show-case first the houses that have bloomed into a full-fledged colony of sorts -- leaving no space for the buffer zone. A few persons in the civic administration might have objected to this development in those early days of encroachment, but their voices were rather too weak and thin to be heard and acted upon. Eventually, a complete colony of houses came up in the place where there should have been the dump-yard’s buffer zone. Buffer zone is not a luxury; it is statutory requirement for the safety of the areas around. A few months ago, the garbage mountains of Bhandewadi caught fire that burned for some days. The fire-tenders found it difficult to approach the burning yard, thanks to the densely constructed houses leaving no space to navigate the fire-tenders through. Factually, such fires often break out in Bhandewadi -- and any other dumping yard anywhere in the country. For, the garbage often has many inflammable materials. Garbage also gives rise to different gases that form inflammable clouds over the dump-yards all the time.

 

The idea of buffer zone is to offer protection to the nearby areas from such fires or also from unhealthy gaseous emissions. Around Bhandewadi, however, all those cautions were thrown to the wind as encroachments were allowed by a lazy, sleepy and sloppy civic administration. Then came in a political vested interest that ensured that all those encroachments were legalised. So, what about the SWM Rules 2026 ? Only fools ask such questions. ‘Wise’ men and women in politics and administration choose to go ‘blind’ to such dirty, ugly realities. So, Bhandewadi will have to make do with the illegal encroachment upon its designated buffer zone -- forever, so to say ! But when some ‘fool’ like the loosefooter raises the question, pat comes the answer: ‘Dear, we are shifting the dump-yard to another site outside the city. So, why not tolerate the encroachment for a while ?’ To this, the loosefooter another counter-question: Will that encroachment stay then after the dump-yard has been moved out ?Does anybody have the power and integrity to implement a removal of encroachment ?

 

However, the loosefooter has another reposte` to that as well: Possibly, when the dump-yard is moved out the space is given to some ‘favoured’ and politically well-connected builder, the encroachments would just vanish

 

 Next week: The loosefooter will ask similar questions about the vanishing of Lendi Talao (which everybody knows but nobody wants to say anything about).