In the wake of the prolonged and ensuing conflict around the disposal of solid municipal waste, a State-level advisory committee has been constituted by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board.
The mandate of this committee, constituted under rules in the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, will be to advise the board on decisions regarding waste management, ranging from daily municipal waste to hazardous and electronic waste, and provide technical expertise on taking important decisions.
This committee will be chaired by the chairperson of the KSPCB, and its members include the commissioner of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike and the director of Municipal Administration.
Among the experts on the panel are Damodharan, professor, Indian Institute of Management, Sandya Narayan, Solid Waste Management Round Table (NGO), and V. Venkatachalapathy, professor and chairman, department of post graduate studies and research in geology.
The Lok Adalat had recommended that a multi-stakeholder advisory body be constituted.
‘A way out’
Speaking to The Hindu , A.S. Sadashivaiah, chairman of the KSPCB, said that in the recent weeks, a situation had emerged where civic bodies and stakeholders were simply blaming each other.
A committee like this is the way out of that situation, where people can sit together and discuss to find long-term solutions, he said.
Besides contentious issues such as where to dispose of solid waste, this will look at how to work out a system to handle industrial waste or implement the e-waste policy. “This will make way for better coordination between various sectors and government bodies.
“It will also have industry bodies such as the KASSIA represented so that the decisions are informed and practical,” he said, calling it an “timely step”.
Underlining the need for such an advisory body, a press release from the KSPCB stated: “Under the rules governing the KSPCB, regulating has become a challenging task due to the lack of management and import of such extraneous waste from other countries.
“In this connection, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board during processing of the applications for such projects, are facing difficulty due to lack of comprehensive technical information available from the concerned departments, NGOs and stakeholders.”
The term of this body is one year.
