In Tennessee, bills hold panchayats accountable for managing solid waste in a scientific manner
On Wednesday, Minister of Rural Development I. Periyasamy filed two distinct measures to alter the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act of 1994. The bills aim to prohibit the careless dumping of septage on rural waterbodies and mandate that village panchayats manage solid waste in a scientific way.
The Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Fourth Amendment) Act, 2024, outlines specific guidelines for controlling the movement and operation of trucks and other vehicles used in septic tank decanting. In order to guarantee their safe disposal in village panchayat regions, it also includes the transportation of faecal sludge and septage.
This amendment created a new section that read, “No person shall collect, transport or dispose faecal sludge or septage from any building, whether used for residential, commercial, or institutional purposes, within the panchayat limits, without a valid licence granted under the Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies Act, 1998.” The Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act of 1994 was amended to include this new section.
The measure stated, however, that no local government or statutory body needs to get a license of this kind in order to collect, transport, and dispose of sludge or septage.
“It shall be the duty of panchayat to manage the solid waste so as to keep the public places clean by adopting a system of collection of segregated waste at source and its transportation, processing, and disposal of solid waste scientifically in a place specifically allotted for this purpose,” reads the second bill Periyasamy introduced, the Tamil Nadu Panchayats (Fifth Amendment) Act, 2024.
The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 already required local authorities to manage their solid waste in a scientific way; but, in order to “cast a duty on the villages” to carry it out, the Tamil Nadu Panchayats Act needed to be amended.
A bill to remove clause (j) of sub-section (1) of section 66 of the HR and CE Act, which states, “A person shall be disqualified for being appointed as and for being a trustee of any religious institution if he is suffering from leprosy,” has been presented by HR and CE Minister PK Sekarbabu.
According to the statute, this is being done to end stigmatizing disabilities and prejudice against those who have leprosy.
