Farmer unions, villagers and representatives of several political parties on Thursday threatened to block the Jalandhar-Pathankot national highway on April 23 for two hours over their demand of cancellation of the bio-CNG plant in the Bhogpur sugar mill.

The representatives led by Congress MLA from Adampur Sukhwinder Singh Kotli met senior officials of the district administration, urging them to immediately stop the operations of the plant on the sugar mill premises.

They claimed that tonnes of garbage would be dumped for bio management once the plant gets operational.

Kotli said the sugar mill administration is hell-bent upon starting operations at the plant.

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

He added that it will turn the whole area into a garbage dump, a nuisance for the nearby villages. Moreover, the authorities concerned didn’t take a no-objection certificate from the village panchayat for establishing the plant.

The district administration and the authorities of Bhogpur Cooperative Sugar Mill had already refuted the claims regarding processing of municipal waste at the upcoming bio-CNG plant in the sugar mill.

The authorities stated that as per the memorandum of understanding signed with the company, there is no provision for processing municipal waste at this plant. Only pressmud, which is generated during cane crushing, will be used as fuel to operate the plant.