KATHMANDU, AUG 30 -
Kathmanduites will heave a sigh of relief from Tuesday with the resumption of garbage collection for disposal.

Waste collection in the Kathmandu Valley had halted since Monday after people living in the vicinity of Aletar landfill site in Nuwakot district barred vehicles from dumping the waste there. They have put forth a 13-point demand including employment to 60 percent of Aletar locals in the newly-bought vehicles, an 80-bed hospital and ambulances.

The Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre (SWMRMC) on Monday signed a three-point agreement with the agitating locals in the presence of officials of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC), the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD) and the Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City, to resume waste disposal.

The officials agreed that locals of the area will be given priority while

hiring staff at the local level and that development work demand will be dealt in a package according to the budget allocated.

“The garbage will be collected from Tuesday,” said Dipendra Oli, legal officer of SWMRMC. Rabinman Shrestha, senior official at the Environment Management Department of the KMC, however, said that it will take at least three days for all the garbage to be collected. The waste—around 1,500 tonnes—has been piling up in the city streets.

The agitating locals have, however, warned of stringent protests if the

government fails to implement the agreement. “The government is responsible for the current mess, as it never translates its pledge into practice,” said Ram Krishna Shrestha, former president of the Okharpauwa Village Development Committee (VDC) in Nuwakot, adding that this is the first written agreement ever with the government. He added that the government also promised to build a 3-km stretch of road in the highly-affected area and initiate locals’ employment within the next three months.

Although the government struck about four dozen agreements with the agitating groups, only a few of them have been implemented effectively, say locals. SWMRMC, on the other hand, claims to have addressed most of the locals’ demands.

The blame-game between the locals and the government has become a seemingly unending phenomenon.


Posted on: 2010-08-31 09:23

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