Pindi Cantt to have ‘waste transfer station’

Around 400 tons of solid waste is generated daily in Cantonment areas

RAWALPINDI:

Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) Executive Officer Imran Gulzar has said that a plan was under consideration to establish a temporary waste transfer station for dumping garbage before transporting the same to the landfill site.

During a media briefing, he said that around 400 tons of solid waste was generated daily in Cantonment areas and the board did not have the capacity to completely transfer the solid waste to the dumping site, which is situated 35-kilometre away from the city. Gulzar said that a temporary waste transfer station has been planned to be established away from the population.

He said that RCB vehicles will transport the waste to the transfer station from where the waste will be transported to dumping by a firm for which the service contract will be outsourced.

The CEO said that Rawalpindi Cantonment has 28 small and 14 big drains and it has been decided to clean them more than once a year. He said that the monsoon caused no loss of life or property this year. He said that an amount of Rs60 million has been collected under conservancy charges from army areas and the amount will be spent on the up-gradation of the RCB sanitation department’s transport fleet.

CEO Gulzar said that “we are not getting our due share of 40% of the water from Khanpur Dam while illegal water connections for commercial use are being regularised after heavy fines”.

The RCB executive officer said that the treatment system in the Cantonment General Hospital has been upgraded.

He said that four to five officials of RCB involved in corruption have been dismissed from service while an inquiry was under way against four to five employees. He said that action was being taken against the rampant commercialisation in residential areas. This will not be allowed under any circumstances.

He said that action was being taken to prevent encroachments and some shopkeepers have also rented out the footpath in front of their shops.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2022.