Fix accountability for sliding of garbage from landfill: Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar

Mangaluru: Alleged delay on part of the district administration in fixing accountability for garbage sliding down at the Mangaluru City Corporation’s landfill at Pachchanady that cascaded into Mandara village riled Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel . The incident on August 17 damaged 19 out of 27 houses in the village, forcing authorities to relocate affected families to Hudco colony at Kulashekara and rope in IISc, Bengaluru, for a scientific solution to the issue.

Nalin who chaired the District Development, Coordination and Monitoring Committee meeting on Thursday, instructed R Selvamani, CEO, Dakshina Kannada zilla panchayat to bring this issue to the notice of Sindhu B Rupesh, deputy commissioner, and complete the inquiry in the next two to three days. MCC is under an administrator headed by the DC, who should have ordered an inquiry into incident and fixed responsibility for the incident, the MP said.

The state government has since stepped in with an assurance to find a solution to the issue. In the interim, authorities or agencies who allowed the situation to come to this, should not be allowed to go scot free, Nalin said. In an indirect taunt to former DC Sasikant Senthil S, who was heading MCC as an administrator when garbage slid down from the landfill and caused a lot of damage, Nalin said people who find fault with democratic processes in India, failed to fix accountability for this grave lapse in their backyard.

Nalin directed his ire against Madhu Manohar, environment engineer and Dr Manjayya Shetty, health officer of MCC, for failing to notice the impending danger at the landfill site. “I have details regarding the irregularities that go on at the dumping site and how the civic body has been held hostage by the city’s solid waste management contractor,” he said, adding it is only in fairness of things that the Lokayukta probes the entire issue threadbare if there is no accountability, he said.