Wastes dumped into Buckingham Canal?: HC seeks report from Mamallapuram panchayat

The Madras High Court had directed the Mamallapuram town panchayat to file a detailed status report within a week to know whether the waste materials collected from the Mamallapuram town are being dumped into the Buckingham Canal.

The first bench, consisting of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy passed the orders on hearing a plea moved Dhaneja Plot Owners Association.

The petitioner sought directions to the government to stop dumping waste materials into the Buckingham canal near Mamallapuram. It was also submitted by the petitioners that the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board had not taken any action against polluting the Buckingham canal and it merely sent a show-cause notice to the Mamallapuram town panchayat.

On recording the submissions, the CJ MN Bhandari advised the TNPCB officers that they should have taken action after noticing the illegalities. “Why the TNPCB has not taken any action for several years even after serving a notice to the town panchayat,” the bench observed.

The court further directed the Mamallapuram TP to file a detailed status report explaining whether the waste materials collected from Mamallapuram are dumped into the Buckingham canal or not.

Meanwhile, the Mamallapuram TP informed the court that it has responded to the show-cause notice issued by the TNPCB. “As Mamallapuram is a place of tourism attraction, the town panchayat has also sought no objection certificate from TNPCB to establish a dumping yard,” the government submitted.

The matter has been adjourned by two weeks.