LALITPUR: After the government decided to set up a refuse-run scientific fuel plant in the Kathmandu Valley to solve the garbage problem permanently, local residents of Sisdole area in Nuwakot, who had been using the garbage issue as a tactic to solve their problems, are now pissed off with the decision. Now, as their protests for making demands fulfilled are likely to yield zilch, they have softened their demand and now pleading that the plant be set up in their area. The Sisdole locals have recently submitted an appeal to set up the garbage-fuelled plant in the area, said Dr Sumitra Amatya, General Manager, Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre (SWMRMC) under the Ministry of Local Development (MoLD). “They have also demanded to dump the valley garbage in their locality,” she added. A ten-member committee coordinated by Shree Ram Dhungana, belonging to UCPN-Maoist, has appealed to the MoLD along with Nepal Bar Association, Federation of Nepalese Journalists, Cabinet and Constituent Assembly members with the regard. Dr Amatya said the SWMRMC was forced to seek an alternative for the sustainable and scientific garbage management after Sisdole locals obstructed the waste disposal time and again in the past. “They were used to block the road or halt dumping of the garbage demanding budget on different topics,” she said. The garbage disposal process was disrupted for 212 days — altogether 53 times — since 2005, according to the SWMRMC. The Sisdole locals obstructed garbage disposal for 183 days while municipal staff halted 29 days by calling strikes as a tactic to fulfill their demands. Ramesh Prasad Paudel, coordinator of the Sisdole Sanitary Landfill Site Struggle Committee, affiliated with UCPN-Maoist, said, “We’ve proposed to permanently solve the garbage problem either in Sisdole or Aletar or Bancharedanda making it a permanent site,” said Paudel. “If the plant is established, that should be set up in our area.” About 500 metric tons of garbage is disposed at Aletar landfill site each day after the earlier dumping site at Sisdole ran out of its capacity about a month ago. Rs 420 million was already spent for the Sisdole area to address the demands of locals, said Amatya. “On an average, Rs 100,000 is spent everyday on the garbage disposal process,” she added.