Despite nearly three years having passed since the National Green Tribunal (NGT) gave its order regarding the proper disposal of garbage and waste products, the State Government, district administration and Nagar Palika Parishad Pauri are sitting on it. Consequently, civic sanitation in regional and district headquarters continues to deteriorate with the municipal waste being dumped haphazardly in the open on the outskirts of Pauri town.
The final order had been passed in September 2014 by National Green Tribunal after the legal representative of the Uttarakhand Government had stated that a land had been earmarked for disposing garbage and waste products. It was then that the principal bench of National Green Tribunal New Delhi had asked Nagar Palika Parishad Pauri to use the particular site as proposed in the tribunal by the Uttarakhand government as the temporary trenching ground for the scientific disposal of garbage and waste products. However, things had hit roadblock as the people had resisted the site being used for dumping garbage, citing its location in the vicinity of the residential areas.
The people of the town allege that the Nagar Palika president Yashpal Benam is not interested in solving the sanitation problem of the town, engaged as he is in construction activities. The civic body remaining in the state of sleep, garbage and waste products are being indiscriminately dumped and burnt in the forest areas and mountain springs to the detriment of the people's health and the environment. They say that NGT should take suo motto notice of the open defiance of its order by Nagar Palika Pauri at the earliest and take corrective steps and also to give direction to Uttarakhand environment protection and pollution control board which was also a party in the case.