PUNE: As the State government has cleared the decks, 57 relatives of the people-affected due to the garbage depot at Urali Devachi would now be permanent employees of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). 

The corporation will now initiate the process of issuing appointment letters to them. The villagers’ main demands, besides shifting of the garbage depot was to give jobs to the affected people.  

The PMC acquired 153 acres of land from Urali Devachi decades ago and developed a garbage depot there. Villagers of Urali Devachi and Phursungi were agitating against this garbage depot since 2009, alleging that water bodies and land had been polluted by the leachate discharge from this garbage depot. They  demanded that the PMC provide them with jobs. The PMC gave appointment letters to 62 beneficiaries on a six-month contract in 2011. The PMC also sent a proposal for the permanent appointment in PMC to the State. The State Cabinet in August this year approved the proposal to provide them jobs under a special provision. But the orders were not issued owing to the ongoing Model Code of Conduct which was in force for the Gram Panchayat elections. 

The State government issued these orders on Thursday. Accordingly, now 57 project affected people from Urali Devachi and Phursungi will be in PMC’s permanent service. It is expected that agitation by the farmers that had created major garbage accumulation problem in Pune city would be pacified with this decision. But PMC needs to adopt new technologies for scientific disposal of garbage. Since the capacity of the current garbage depot has got over, the civic body is desperately looking for another site for dumping garbage. 

GARBAGE PROBLEM CONTINUES
- PMC is also facing flak for its solid waste processing unit in Ramktekdi, Hadapsar. 
- The issue rocked the PMC General Body meeting when NCP Corporator Yogesh Sasane entered the meeting while playing a siren to attract attention towards the problem. 
- Ruling party corporators objected and asked for the action against Sasane. Mayor Mukta Tilak asked security guards to confiscate the instrument. 
- The locals have formed ‘Hadapsar Kachara Prakalp Hatav Samiti’ to oppose the project. In September, members of this Samiti, including Sasane and former MLA Mahadev Babar, stopped work of the garbage depot.