Kathmandu, January 17:

The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) will start collecting garbage piled up in the city streets for over a week from tomorrow after the agitating Dhading locals agreed to let KMC dump the garbage in the landfill site.

The agitating people of Chhatredeurali VDC of Dhading agreed to allow the KMC dump the garbage after talks held with the government ended positively today. The government, in return, agreed to meet the demands of the local people affected by the landfill site

in Dhading.

Ashok Shahi, acting general secretary of Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilisation Centre under the Ministry of Local Development, said, “We agreed to meet their demands of constructing a road and forming an authorised committee comprising representatives from the locals and the political parties to manage the garbage and execute development work in the affected villages.”

Shahi said that they agreed to form ‘solid waste monitoring committee’ to settle the problems. It would monitor the landfill site regularly and organise interactions with the locals. “The main task of the committee is to deal with the construction work in the landfill site for the sustainable solution of the problem,” he added. Ramesh Prasad Paudyal, Maoist representative in the seven-party mechanism in Dhading, said the 13-member committee would include representatives from the political parties, local people, KMC, Lalitpur Sub-Metropolitan City and the ministry.

Paudyal said centre agreed to carry out sustainable management of waste in the landfill site and the agreement would be signed formally very soon. According to the agreement, the locals will not disrupt the garbage management activities and the government will announce annual incentive package for the locals of Dhading.

KMC has not been able to collect the garbage for over a week due to the dispute between the locals of two villages of Nuwakot and Dhading, on the border of which the landfill site is located. The collection was obstructed after the locals of Chhatredeurali VDC in Dhading started blocking entry of trucks carrying garbage to the landfill site.