Statesman News Service
MALDA, 7 AUG: The Malda sub-divisional officer, Mr Prakash Pal has allowed the English Bazaar Municipality to carry on dumping garbage at its old vat located at Chandan Park for thirty days from today and asked the chairman Mr Narendranath Tiwari to select another suitable place for garbage dumping during this period.
Due to protests from locals over the garbage, which included risky medical waste, being dumped unscientifically, the EBM has not cleared any garbage from English Bazaar town for the past five days.
The district administrative officials, including the SDO and DM, intervened and finally convinced the agitators last late night.
Locals nearby Chandan Park in ward no 25 had formed a committee to control the pollution spreading from the civic bodies vat and had been preventing the civic body from dumping garbage there.
“After a few days we would ask the civic body about the selection of a new place where garbage would be dumped after 30 days, implementing its sanctioned solid waste management project,” said Mr Prakash Pal.
The chairman of the EBM Mr Tiwari alleged an indirect political conspiracy. Also, a section of promoters had backed the locals in the movement against the civic body.
The plot of land which the EBM officials has claimed as its own land for dumping garbage since 1968 allegedly does not belong to them anymore. Locals informed the SDO that the plot of land now belongs to the Wakf as the contract with the EBM has terminated.
The Opposition leader to the Congress, Trinamul Congress and BJP led board, Mr Dulal Nandan Chaki, claimed: “We showed nearly six acres of a new desolated plot of land near Bagbari, on the outskirts of Malda town, for garbage dumping and implementing the solid waste management project. Though the civic body agreed, it suddenly changed this decision and helped another promoter to buy that land for a cheap price.”
“The EBM had made an advance payment of Rs 6 lakh to another man to buy seven bighas of land at Nimasarai under Kotwali gram panchayat, who bought the land near Bagbari,” Mr Chaki alleged.
In another dispute, the workers' union of the Old Malda Municipality backed by the Intuc today staged an agitation against the CPI-M led civic body in protest against corrupt recruitment.
The leader of the workers Mr SK Sarkar said: “The board has stopped providing increment and other facilities to 61 old members of staff but is recruiting new staff, ignoring the government's direction.”
After the publication of an open advertisement for the recruitment of 17 members of staff in different categories, the civic body has not started the process, even after this long delay.
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