Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) may soon face censure from the Supreme Court for non-compliance of an order regarding submission of an action plan on solid waste management.

In pursuance of an eight-year-old case, Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice D.M. Dharmadhikari of the apex court had ordered in October that all state capitals, metros and some cities must submit their action plans to the respective state pollution control boards ?without any further delay?.

High on the list of 59 cities are Calcutta and Asansol. The Asansol municipality has already submitted its action plan, which is being ?finetuned according to the guidelines laid down by the Centre,? said a source in the state board.

?We will discuss the matter with the authorities of the two civic bodies this week,? state board member-secretary Shyamal Sarkar informed Metro.

CMC?s chief engineer (conservancy) Arun Sarkar, however, claimed that the action plan will be submitted shortly.

?You must appreciate how enormous our problem is. We are in the process of preparing the report with help from Asian Development Bank,? Sarkar added.

In the October judgment, the apex court had directed the Centre to prepare a comprehensive action plan based on the inputs from individual municipalities and municipal corporations within six weeks.

The bench had emphasised that ?considerable time has elapsed since the matter was addressed in the conference of March 2004 (the 50th conference of member-secretaries and chairpersons of all state pollution control boards).

Several cities and a few metros have complied with the court directive. ?We have received action plans from about 25 cities. Some others might have sent their reports to the urban development ministry or the environment ministry,? said A.B. Akolkar, additional director, Central Pollution Control Board.

?The plan needs to be detailed with all technical information from the collection stage to the final disposal stage. It must also contain specific inputs on the present infrastructure, need for its upgrade and a roadmap for implementation,? Akolkar added.

One action plan will not solve all problems regarding solid waste management, but the cities need to make a start, said a central board official.