PESHAWAR: The Water and Sanitation Services Peshawar hasn’t lifted most of the garbage produced in the provincial capital for the last one week over the people’s resistance to the use of temporary dumping site in Bahadur Kaly area.

The issue has added to the misery of the city’s over five million residents, who are already suffering from the large-scale road diggings and closures due to the ongoing Bus Rapid Transit project.

A senior WSSP official wondered why the civic agency would lift garbage if it had no place to dispose it of.

WSSP chief says we’ll try to resolve the issue next week

“Only part of the garbage generated by the city could be lifted during the last four days as the local residents have stopped our garbage trucks from unloading in the temporary dumping site in Bahadur Kaly area,” he told Dawn.

The official said the WSSP’s sanitation staff members threw the little garbage, which they collected, in pits on the city’s outskirts.

He said the civic agency’s top bosses had directed the heads of the city’s four zones to locate such pits for garbage disposal until the dumpsite issue was resolved.

The official said garbage was lifted only in the city’s busiest markets and bazaars to prevent possible law and order situation, while garbage trucks hadn’t gone to the rest of the urban and semi-urban areas for the last four days.

He said the WSSP and district administration had been struggling to find proper ways to dispose of garbage since last Monday when the people of Bahadur Kaly stopped garbage trucks from unloading in the temporarily dumping site over the stinking environment and fears of outbreak of diseases.

The people insisted that their move came only after their repeated requests and warnings to the WSSP to find an alternative dumpsite fell on deaf ears.

When contacted, WSSP chief executive Khanzeb said Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had called a meeting next Monday for discussing on the issue.

“We will try to resolve this issue in the forthcoming week,” he said.

The WSSP chief said all MPAs of Peshawar, district nazim, additional chief secretary, commissioner and deputy commissioner, civic agency’s high-ups, and secretaries of the finance and local government departments would attend the meeting.

Sources said MPAs of Peshawar were the main hurdle to the purchase of land in the city for a permanent dumping site.

They said the civic agency had enough funds but failed to purchase land for the purpose due to the resistance of the local politicians.

The sources said the purchase of 574 kanals of land in Maryamzai area on the outskirts of the provincial capital had reached the ‘maturity stage’ before a PTI minister came in its way.

They said another land was later chosen in Surizai Mera area but couldn’t be used for garbage dumping due to the opposition of another PTI minister.

The sources said Peshawar generated 1,000 tons of garbage daily with 80 per cent of it being lifted daily by the WSSP.

They said the WSSP had changed three garbage dumping sites during the last one year due to the resistance of the local residents.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2018