NGT notice to MP govt, Bhopal commissioner on landfill issue

The central bench of the National Green Tribunal here has issued show-cause notices to the Bhopal municipal commissioner and the Madhya Pradesh government
for failing to shift Bhanpur 'landfill' (waste disposal site) outside the city.
Why a penalty of Rs five crore each should not be imposed for failing to comply with NGT's earlier order, it asks.
The tribunal bench of Justice Dalip Singh and expert member P S Rao yesterday evening issued the notice to the commissioner Tejaswi Naik and urban administration's principal secretary S N Mishra, seeking replies within a week.
If the penalty was eventually recovered, it should be treated as a corpus to help those affected by the disposal of solid waste in the area, it said.

The NGT also asked the state Pollution Control Board to launch prosecution against all the commissioners since 2004, as the waste was dumped and burned at the site without mandatory permissions during this period, said petitioner Subhash Pandey.

He said NGT also asked the district chief medical and health officer Dr Pankaj Shukla to carry out a study to ascertain the health problems caused by the burning of the waste in the area.
According to Pandey, on February 4 this year NGT had asked the BMC to shift the Bhanpur landfill to Adampur Chawani. The authorities assured that this would be done in six months, but failed to carry out the order.

Pandey moved the NGT after getting information about the illegal landfill through the right to information. He claimed that around two lakh people live in the surrounding area and face health hazards.