By Our Reporter
This week, the capital city again had an ugly look with piles of garbage accumulated on the streets of Kathmandu as locals residing around Sisdol landfill site at Okharpauwa of Nuwakot district obstructed the movement of waste carrying vehicles.
The Sisdol landfill site was leased by the government on June 2005 by signing a two-year contract with the locals as part of temporary solution to the waste management of the Kathmandu Valley. The locals, who now feel betrayed by the government, came forward with a new demand that it should legally acquire their land.
Locals have said that the original landfill site proposed in the area was of around 600 square metres. But the area grew larger and larger with each passing year, so the government started acquiring public and guthi land to address the ever growing waste management problem. The locals were also compelled to lease their land to the government after their land was surrounded by the mountain of garbage.
After realising that they can no longer utilise their land, they have demanded the government should buy their land as per the market price.
They even clashed with the police deployed from Metropolitan Police Range when they halted vehicular movement to the landfill site.
However, after talks between the locals of Sisdol and Bidhya Sundar Shakya, mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City, the problem was said to have sorted out and the garbage collection would be resumed from Monday, but nothing such had been noticed.
Locals have been demanding that the government needed to buy 42 to 50 ropanis of private land, rendered useless by the dumping site. These land belongs to around 150 households.
Indeed, it has been years since the denizens have forced to live amidst summits of garbage, that’s too during rainy monsoon and festival season. It is all because the government failed to make preparations for the long term solution to the problem of garbage. As a result, the people have to live braving the stinking garbage heaps accumulated in the streets of their capital city.
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