BLAME GAME 'WASTES' MORE TIME

Girish Bapat passes buck back to PMC to resolve crisis, despite its abject failure to do so till date; he is yet to visit city's depots although it was discussed in Jan

Reeling under an ever-intensifying garbage crisis, the city, which had seemingly reposed its faith in new Pune district guardian minister Girish Bapat of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to bring about a solution to the problem, may be surprised to know that Bapat has, instead, put the onus of finding an answer to the issue neatly on the shoulders of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), despite the latter clearly having failed at the task till date.

In a freewheeling chat with Pune Mirror, the guardian minister spoke up for the first time on the topic on Thursday, a day after Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Member of Parliament (MP) Vandana Chavan, city mayor Dattatreya Dhankawde and leader of the House in PMC Subhas Jagtap collectively accused Bapat of taking no interest in the problem.

Reacting to the allegations, Bapat asserted, "It is actually the duty of the local self-government (in this case PMC) to handle such garbage issues. However, they have failed to tackle it and are now trying to hold me responsible for finding asolution."

Asked if he was aware of ground realities, or had witnessed the city's streets or garbage depots piled up with rubbish yet, he said, "I will be visiting the local garbage depots over the coming two days, and will take the appropriate decision thereafter."

He added, "I am not bypassing the garbage issue. I am confident of resolving it. However, just because I have shown eagerness on the subject, PMC is trying to shove the entire responsibility on my shoulders as guardian minister."

While Bapat expressed displeasure at PMC's efforts to resolve the piling up of waste around Pune, he avoided supplying any concrete answers about his plans, instead saying, "I will call a press conference in two or three days and give all details of what I have done to solve the problem."

Countering Bapat's allegations, mayor Dhankawde said, "The civic body is taking all the necessary precautions to dispose of garbage, and is not denying its responsibility. We have exhausted our land and resources to dispose of garbage. Now, we want permission to dump dry garbage at the Uruli-Devachi depot. As guardian minister, Bapat should be the one taking a decision to allow PMC to do so. However, he has taken no decision as of our first meeting on the issue on January 30. If a decision had been taken, the situation would have already been under control now — however, they just killed time."

Countering this, however, Bhagwan Bhadale, president of the Kachra Depot Hatav Sangharsh Samiti, said protesters have already given the civic body nine months to utilise the Uruli-Devachi depot. "We never opposed PMC capping garbage at the Uruli-Devachi depot. We have already given them a nine-month period to do so, at a meeting with chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on the matter in the first week of January. At a meeting in the first week of February with Bapat, we told him to take a decision on the capping of garbage. At the time, he said he would decide after visiting depots, which he has not done yet."

However, despite one-and-a-half months having gone by, PMC has neither dumped garbage at the Uruli-Devachi depot, nor provided any other solution. Though the civic body has been collecting garbage, an option to dispose of it completely within the city area does not exist yet — instead, many have been burning garbage in several areas, leading to additional pollution problems.

Suresh Jagtap, head of the solid waste management department of PMC, said, "The city has a serious dry garbage problem — of the total 1,700 tonnes of garbage generated every day, PMC disposes of 650 tonnes of wet garbage at processing plants and via dumping in farmlands."

Citizens, meanwhile, continue to suffer. Achyut Molawade, a resident of Kalyaninagar, said, "I am not interested in this political blame game — all I care about is that this garbage problem is resolved. Garbage is piling up in every corner of the city, not just the Kalyaninagar area. The government needs to take serious cognisance of this. Choosing the easy way of disposing garbage by burning it is no solution. Instead, it just creates very harmful air pollution."