Kathmandu, August 17:

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) began collecting garbage at 10 am today from different parts of the city.

The collection of garbage had been stalled for a week due to the protests by the private companies and community based organisations (CBOs) engaged in the task.

The private bodies and the CBOs had stopped collecting garbage from the households in the city to protest the KMC’s decision to bar them from dumping waste at the Teku Transfer station and making them ferry the garbage to the Sisdole Landfill site. Heaps of garbage on the streets, coupled with incessant rainfall, has been posing a health hazard in the city. “The KMC started collecting the garbage after a dialogue with private companies and the CBOs failed yesterday,” said Rabin Man Shrestha, head of environmental department of the KMC. The KMC is yet to come up with a concrete policy regarding collecting garbage from city houses.

Some 43 per cent of the garbage produced in the city used to be collected and transferred by the private companies and CBOs by charging each household a service charge ranging from Rs 50 depending on the gobs of waste.

Dinesh Thapaliya, chief executive officer of the KMC, said the collection of solid waste from the households would start after the representatives from eight political parties, KMC workers’ unions and experts finalise a legal framework for involving the private companies and CBOs in the task of solid waste management.

Meanwhile, the private companies and the CBOs continued their protest today.

MPs concerned

KATHMANDU: MPs, spea-king on Friday, expressed concern about the problem of waste management in Kathmandu and demanded solution to the problem. MP Rajendra Pandey of the CPN-UML joined other lawmakers to express concern about the garbage scattered on the streets in Kathmandu and drew the government’s attention to solve the problem by addressing the issues raised by agitating bodies. — HNS