Aafrin Kidwai 
A district court has stayed the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation’s recent notice to the Japyee group to terminate its garbage-processing plant contract and seek the unit’s possession.
On December 30, 2005, the civic body had signed the agreement with Jaypee to set up and run a plant to recycle the city’s solid waste. The Times of India reports that the plant was built in 2008 for more than Rs 32 crore to process 500 metric tonnes of garbage a day but it ran into huge losses despite a monthly cost of up to Rs 60 lakh. A dispute over the payment of tipping fee was brewing between the two parties for long. Jaypee even stopped work in 2016 to force the MC to pay this fee but, after the National Green Tribunal’s orders, it resumed operation and spent more than Rs 7 crore on upgrading the plant. Jaypee’s lawyer has argued that the MC failed to abide by the NGT orders for deploying machines and manpower to segregate waste.
Picture Credit: Municipal Corporation Chandigarh
