NPP legislator from Jowai Wailadmiki Shylla on Tuesday said the government could not acquire land for setting up of a permanent landfill for Jowai town because of “too much of politics”.
Shylla told reporters too many people are playing politics on the garbage issue – which had worstly affected the Jowai town and its residents in the recent past.
“We have not acquired any land. It is not a good time to move forward on this. That is why we are keeping it in abeyance,” he said.
Shylla said, “We have called the Expression of Interest (EoI) and around 18-19 landowners came forward to offer their land for the purpose. Of these, we have selected 3 after a survey was conducted by the task force committee.”
“However at the end it is not the land owners who are opposing but are the people residing in and around the area and they are backed by NGOs. We have been trying all this time but what came out of this is that we see many people are just playing politics on this issue,” he said.
He said even the Meghalaya High Court while hearing a PIL on this regard had also observed that someone is playing politics on the garbage issue.
Shylla also expressed surprise that the opposition came despite awareness being created that there will be no ill-effects coming out of the landfill.
The MLA informed that the government for now is focusing on temporary arrangement for managing the waste disposal in the town.
“We have started the segregation of the waste at household level and soon will implement the same in the market,” he said while informing that waste treatment plants are also being set up in and around Jowai.