KATHMANDU, JULY 17

With the monsoon reaching its peak in Kathmandu valley increasing the risk of transmission of water-borne diseases, the problem of managing Kathmandu valley's waste at Bancharedanda sanitary landfill site has surfaced yet again as in the previous years due to the obstruction of locals residing in the area.

Normally, irate locals each year obstruct trucks ferrying garbage from the valley demanding the uplift of road condition in the monsoon season. However, since majority of the roads around the landfill site has been completed, locals have now demanded that each truck entering the landfill site should pay Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 as per its capacity to the locals there.

Each day, approximately 200 trucks dump garbage from Kathmandu valley into the landfill site. With today's obstruction, movement of all trucks to the landfill site has stopped. As a result, the trucks are not able to collect waste from the valley.

A few days ago, the municipal council of Kakani Municipality had decided to charge entry fee to the trucks. However, the Waste Management Union sought legal support and filed a writ petition against the decision at the Supreme Court. The SC issued stay order asking Kakani Municipality not to implement the decision. However, scores of locals have gathered at the main entrance of the landfill site to obstruct the entry of trucks there demanding the money.

Mayor of Kakani Municipality Suman Tamang told THT that although they had to backtrack from the decision they could not stop their locals from obstructing the vehicles as they have forwardedgenuine demands. 'It is our people who are suffering from the garbage they did not produce.

How can one possibly think about allowing the dumping of waste they produce in the vicinity of neighbouring houses?' Tamang said. He further said they would stand with the public morally by not letting the trucks ferry waste until their demands were fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Kathmandu Metropolitan City said they had provided enough incentives to the locals there as per the previous demands, adding that fulfilling new demands was out of the question.

Sarkar Raj Shrestha, head of the landfill site management section of the environment department of the KMC, said they had spent over Rs 150 million on the locals there annually for education, health, jobs and other incentives.

'The local government has spent a lot of money to support the locals there. Moreover, they also get huge incentives from the federal government. There is no point in causing obstruction,' Shrestha said.

Kathmandu valley generates over 1,200 tonnes of waste on a daily basis, which is dumped in the landfill site through various private firms that collect money from the locals. The KMC supports the private firms as the federal government has also authorised it to operate the landfill site.

On June 10 last year, the agitating locals signed two separate agreements with the federal government and the KMC, ending months-long protest after the government agreed to fulfil most of their demands. However, work related to the major demand of acquiring land that falls in the buffer area of the landfill site by the government by paying proper reimbursement has

A version of this article appears in the print on July 18, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.