Jahangeer Ganaie
Pulwama, Dec 20: The Small Industries Development Corporations (SIDCO’s) Industrial area at Lassipora in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district is functioning without a waste disposal facility while no health care facilities are available at the estate, unit holders alleged.
Unit holders said that the whole garbage generated at the industrial area is being dumped on the bank of rivulet Rambi Ara thereby posing threat to the water body on which thousands of people are dependent for drinking and irrigation purposes.
An official working in the industrial area said that every day heaps of garbage is being thrown into the rivulet which poses health hazards to thousands of people.
He said that despite repeated communications to the unit holders to use dustbins which will be taken up by municipal authorities every day, most of the unit holders are resorting to dumping all waste in the main water body which is the main source of drinking water for people of dozens of villages.
Locals from Heff, Shirmal, Sugan, Achan, Petipora, Panjran and its adjacent areas said since years garbage is being thrown into the water body which is posing a threat to the environment as well as to the lives, farmland and orchards of the area.
They said that they have brought this issue into the notice of concerned authorities several times but they are unmoved.
Unit holders said that there is no other option for them as there is no waste management plant in such a vast industrial estate which is spread over around six thousand kanals.
“Until and unless the government won’t provide such facilities there is no other option before us than to dump the waste in the open,” they said.
Industrial zone housing more than 400 units with no health care or emergency facilities available, unit holders said.
They said that there is machine work going on at every unit and anytime there can be an emergency situation but in absence of any health facility there is no option other than to take the person to district hospital Pulwama which is around 15 kilometres away from the area.
“Many times labourers have got injured while working and lost a lot of blood in reaching the hospital and if such facilities would have been available here such cases would have been treated on the spot,” the unit holders alleged.
An official of the Industrial estate said that they have written to Chief Medical Officer Pulwama several times who had assured that facilities will be made available there but so far nothing has been done.
When contacted, Manager Industrial Estate Lassipora, Rafiq Ahmad, said that the estate has already identified two kanals of land for the construction of a hospital there and very soon work will start on it.
On asking about solid waste management plants, Rafiq said that the common effluent treatment plant is functional in the industrial area and facilities for solid waste management facilities are being created.
“Unit holders aren’t cooperating. I will call all unit holders in this regard and hopefully very soon the issue will be resolved,” he said. (KNO)
