Municipal Corporations, committees and councils all over the state, be it Pahalgam, Aishmuqam, Seerhamdan or Mattan,Ananthnag...... are regularly dumping untreated garbage near water bodies or sensitive zones .

September 18 2017: Municipal Corporations, committees and councils all over the state, be it Pahalgam, Aishmuqam, Seerhamdan  or Mattan,Ananthnag......  are regularly dumping untreated garbage near water bodies or sensitive zones . This rivulet merges with the Lidder River and other bodies ahead and the same water is then consumed by thousands of people living downstream.
That some owners of private hotels situated outside municipal limits also dump garbage at the sites like sarbal, aishmuqam secretively, severely affecting hundreds of residential settlements around the dumping site. Clearly this is to pocket the money they get to treat the garbage as part of routine expenditure obviously at huge environmental costs. A.state-wide campaign needs to be launched to check this practise and a firm and directioned course of action needs to be immediately devised. Higher authorities need to conduct internal enquiries and hold liable the guilty while FIRs should also simultaneously be launched against those responsible for contamination of water bodies and for putting public safety and health of local residents at risk making tthem vulnerable to a host of water borne diseases including diseases Hepatitis A, E.

Mushtaq Pahalgami
Himalayan Welfare Organization-HWO