Garbage issue in Colombo

Establishing a Municipal Corporation extending to a very large area from the present 37.37 sq.km, may be the answer

By E.H.Pemaratne Attorney at Law/Town Planner.

At the ‘Janahanda’ political discussion telecast by the TNL held on May 4, on the Western Provincial Council elections , the government was represented by the new Chief Minister and the Minister of Environment, Udaya Gammanpila, while the UNP and the JVP were respectively represented by Sujeewa Serasinghe and Waruna Rajapaksa both Councillors of the New WPC. The issue of garbage crept into the discussions and when the UNP representative alleged the former Council of the WP for his failure to handle the issue, Gammanpila argued that as the city was administered by a UNP Council with whom the responsibility for garbage disposal lies, and which did not cooperate with the CEA (Central Environmental Authority,) the problem could not be satisfactorily handled. His argument was that it is the Local Authority that is legally responsible for garbage disposal.
Although it is correct in general with regard to local authorities which are totally administered under Municipal, Urban or Pradeshiya Sabha Enactments, the issue is totally different in the case of local authority areas which have been declared as UDA areas, under Sec. 3 of the UDA Law. Since Sept. 1978 the City of Colombo had been an UDA area for which the UDA is mandatorily bound to prepare a Development Plan under Sec. 8A, “with a view to promote integrated planning and regulate physical development having regard to the amenities and services to be provided to the community”. This provision makes the UDA obligatory for the provision of amenities and service to the community, in accordance with the development plan which should consist of a phased out investment programme, and scheme to regulate physical development within the framework of the above investment programme.. The term “services” in the above legal phrase includes garbage disposal also. So no one can pass the responsibility for garbage disposal to the local authority, as the UDA is the Authority holding responsibility for planned development, and so bound to regulate development in accordance with the development plan. In fact the CEA itself, according to the an UDA Law which over-rides all other laws pertaining to urban development, should have been included by the UDA in this regard. Had this been done the CMC would have been powerless to ignore the CEA intervention as it comes as a stake-holder in the Development Plan. Properly speaking the CEA has no authority to function in a UDA Area without consultation with the UDA, CEA cannot dump a programme for garbage disposal without integrating it to the Development Plan as it is the Development Plan which guides land use zoning and intensity of development. Although under the Local Government Laws, a Local Authority cannot operate a garbage dumping ground outside its administrative limits, UDA can develop dumping sites any where within its declared areas. It is illegal for a Local Council to run its vehicles outside its limits so they are compelled to dump garbage within its limits This is unthinkable in the case of the urban conurbation of Colombo which includes not only the city but also an area of at least 300 sq.km running to a distance of about 20 km from the City Centre.
For this purpose although the CEA has been successful in handling garbage in Negombo and Bandaragama according to Gammanpila, it is not correct for it to encroach into the responsibility of the UDA. In frankness what has happened is that the UDA has utterly failed to perform its responsibility in meeting its legal obligations. According to the development projects lying on the UDA table for the last 30 years, the outdated imperialist introduced land use pattern of the city, specially in the City Centre is to be totally replaced with modern development . It is the City Centre and the eleven public markets run by the Municipality for the legal purpose of ensuring “comfort and convenience” of the public, that generates over. 60% of the garbage. According to those projects Manning Market is to be relocated at Orugodawatta and the site of the present Prison Complex, after moving the latter out of the City. This alone shows how the planning and investment in the City development relates to garbage generation and disposal. The unplanned and unregulated development that is taking place at present in the City will make it a curse of concrete structures in areas such as Wellawatta without adequate road space to move even garbage collecting vehicles in the future, as the narrow roads in the City are all studded with multi-storey apartments owned by private car-owners, to accommodate which, the present infrastructure network is extremely inadequate. This makes the enjoyment of ‘comfort and convenience’ by the future generations of the City a distant dream.
If the UDA expects to accommodate one million people in the city (as advocated by a informal development plan they prepared in 1999) it should be ready with necessary amenities and services to maintain such a huge population. The above development plan seeks only to regulate development in the city with no integrated investment programme prepared by the UDA in 1999. This is not legally binding as it attempts to stand only on one leg namely application of planning standards without laying a material basis for such regulation through an investment plan which is the other leg.
Low income communities
Another aspect is the huge low-income communities that are spread throughout the City. specially in the northern parts of Colombo. Unless the land use pattern related to the harbour operations and the whole sale market complex are transformed into modern uses, the low income communities who are dependent on such activities cannot be directed to move out from the City Centre. Extremely high concentration of shanty population in the Northern wards of Colombo, is closely related to the Pettah trading activities. Although the harbour modernisation during late Lalith Athulathmudali’s time, severed its economic links to the low-income community, owing to the UDA’s failure to coordinate that modernisation programme with an appropriate land use scheme for the area, has left land uses in the vicinity of the harbour incompatible with the harbour.
The above discussion shows that the CEA or the Municipality alone cannot cope with the garbage problem, nor with any other urban issue as its roots lie else where.Therefore the first obligation of the New Council is to have a very clear idea of the reasons for the existing composition of garbage in the city, the sources of generation, what changes should be logically made to such sources, and the preparation of a detail garbage selection as well as disposal strategy. In this endeavour one agency that cannot be allowed to avoid its responsibility is the UDA. The UDA was established to earn its own funds and spend on urban development. Had the UDA and the Town Planning profession been serious in their duties, none of the urban problems that we discuss today would have been inherited by us. Even the unemployment problem, and a gamut of issues including the beggar problem, the ethnic problem, human rights violation and the rule of law are closely linked to the development of the city of Colombo on the guidelines of a national urban strategy. Such a broad outlook would invite the policy makers to rethink the pro-rural development policy which has compelled the government to adopt a heavy subsidisation of agriculture at the cost of providing urgently needed urban infrastructure.
So if the new WPC is interested in handling the garbage issue, it is important that the Chief Minister takes a more comprehensive approach of the urban scenario of the Western Province, and be dedicated to the understanding of its potential for employment creation and investment. In this context the most important issue is the role the City of Colombo is forced to play. Although it is one of the 36 Municipalities administered under the same Municipal Council Ordinance, whether the legal fangs it extends to the City administration is adequate to deal with its responsibilities, should be seriously paid attention to. It plays a role very much beyond a Municipal Council as the National Commercial Capital, and the economic heart of the nation aspiring to be the regional hub of South East Asia. It is festered with a daily commuting population of over one million to whom the present economic prosperity of the city can be attributed. So making more and more people visit the City is important. This will direct to the on-going transport policies which is aimed at restricting the visitors to the city. If they do not visit the City the whole economic prosperity will dwindle.It is also the national administrative, (still to a very large extent) political, cultural, health, education and defense centre Therefore it should run on a totally different scale from an ordinary Municipal Council among which come towns such as Kadugannawa and Haputale the population of which is below 2000. This invites the attention of the authorities to the need to establish a Municipal Corporation extending to a very large area from the present 37.37 sq.km. For this purpose it is necessary to introduce new laws not by the WPC but by the Parliament. This shows that the issue of garbage disposal is not simple as Gammanpila attempted with his polemics to minimise.