Protesters block Jalandhar-Pathankot NH for 3 hours against bio-CNG plant

Commuters were a harried lot as farmer unions, villagers, market associations and representatives of several political parties blocked the Jalandhar-Pathankot national highway at Bhogpur for nearly three hours on Wednesday against a bio-CNG plant at the cooperative sugar mill.

The protesters said the administration is planning to discard waste from Jalandhar and nearby areas for bio management at the plant, which will turn the whole area into a garbage dump.

The district administration and mill authorities, however, have already refuted claims that municipal waste will be processed here. As per the authorties, only pressmud, which is generated during cane crushing, will be used as fuel to operate the plant.

However, the protesters, led by Congress MLA from Adampur, Sukhwinder Singh Kotli, demanded that the district administration should immediately stop operations at the plant. Kotli added that the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) will be hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) against the plant on Thursday.

“We were demanding cancellation of the agreement between the bio-CNG plant and the Bhogpur sugar mill,” he said.

He added that the authorities concerned didn’t take any no-objection certificate from the village panchayat before establishing the plant.

Adampur sub-divisional magistrate Vivek Kumar Modi said the administration stands by the demands of Bhogpur residents and is waiting for the HC’s decision before starting plant operations. “We appealed the protesters to clear the road as it connects Punjab with Jammu and Kashmir, which witnessed a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam,” he said.