SHILLONG: After a considerable amount of time elapsed in obtaining environmental clearance, the funding by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on the long term sanitary landfill could not be finalized which slowed down the developing the processing and disposal facilities at Umsawli.
This was a reply of the Urban Affairs Minister, Hamletson Dohling to the supplementary question raised by Congress MLA Ampareen Lyngdoh on the status of Umsawli site as a landfill site.
Dohling said that a new task force was set up to identify and select suitable site to take the need for identifying a site for long term use.
He pointed to the objections that raised concerns of contamination of ground water and air pollution while environmental clearance for the project was applied from the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) and a public hearing on the same was conducted by Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) on September 3, 2013.
He added, “Due to various public objections on all the sites which were identified by the Task Force set up by the Government in the year 2009, the 54-acre plot of land at Umsawli which was already in possession of the department of Urban Affairs and which comply with the norms under the Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, was identified as the long term processing and disposal site and a DPR for development of a sanitary landfill was prepared.”
The Urban Affairs department and the project office were asked to address the environment concerns and the Environment Impact Assessment and Environment Management Plan were reviewed and re-submitted to the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority.
The Urban Affairs Minister said that the Department has been on the look-out for new solid waste processing and disposal site since Marten at Mawlai Mawiong which was in use from 1938 is reaching a saturation state.
“As the loan agreement between the government and Asian Development Bank (ADB), the state government is obliged to identify, notify land acquisition and transfer a long tern sanitary landfill site before award of contract for the first phase sanitary Landfill at Marten,” Dohling said.
He added that ADB has earlier agreed to fund the development of long term processing facility and sanitary landfill for the city provided land is readily available.
Tourist resort
Dohling said that a joint inspection was conducted on August 17, 2017 by then Chief Minister Mukul Sangma in which it was decided that the site should instead be developed as a tourist resort or as facility from tourism perspective.
“Therefore, as a follow up to this inspection report a decision to hand over the site to tourism department was taken by the New Shillong Township Development Agency (NSTDA) committee chaired by the Chief Secretary on October 20, 2016 and November 21, 2016.