CM forms committee on landfill site

LAHORE: The Punjab chief minister has constituted a committee to review the operation and management of country’s first and only scientific landfill site, which has reportedly been converted into a dump site due to unavailability of relevant machinery.

The News in a recent report has highlighted the issue that country’s first scientific landfill site is being operated unscientifically for lack of a heavy compacter, which is a pre-requisite for scientific landfill site.

According to the CM’s notification, a nine-member committee has been constituted to investigate the issue. “The Committee will review steps taken for operation and management of landfill site at Lakhodair, Lahore,” was the subject of the letter, sources said, adding the members are provincial minister LG&CD (Convener), additional chief secretary (Co-Convener), secretary LG & CD (member/secretary), secretary environment (Member), Lord Mayor Lahore (Member), Khwaja Ahmad Hassaan (Member), Commissioner Lahore Division (Member), CEO Urban Unit (Member), LWMC MD (Member) and any other member co-opted by the committee.

Before the inception of LWMC, waste collection and disposal cost of Solid Waste Department of the district government was around 2.5 billion whereas LWMC’s budget is around 15 billion and still 75 percent waste is disposed of unscientifically because of the delay in complete construction of the scientific landfill site.

Environmentalists say scientific landfill site has been constructed to keep the ground water safe from leachate (liquid released by municipal solid waste) as it is the main source of drinking water across the city. They say waste dumped around scientific landfill site is considered illegal and it has already polluted the underground water of the city.

“Our technical consultant ISTAC suggested us to use different combinations of machines for compacting,” said Ali Mazhar, LWMC’s company spokesman. He said the first meeting of CM’s committee meeting was held and the committee will meet again shortly.

When contacted, Lord Mayor Lahore Col ® Mubashar said that he could not attend the first meeting but will ensure his presence in the second one. He said every appropriate measure will be taken to safeguard the scientific landfill site to save it from becoming the dumping site. “Providing clean drinking water to Lahore is my dream and it is also the vision of the CM, which will be fulfilled very soon,” he concluded.