The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Rs.22 cr. project with TNAU tie-up

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 18, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Rs.22 cr. project with TNAU tie-up

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, FEB.17. The Coimbatore Corporation has drawn up a Rs.22-crore solid waste management programme including tie-ups with the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and a private firm on the outskirts.

With this, the Corporation seems to have settled for a centralised waste management, after exploring decentralised options such as community composting under which waste-to-manure process is done in each residential layout.

Converting biodegradable waste into manure with guidance from the university and purchase of pushcarts, trolleys and lorries for door-to-door collection of waste form key components of the programme that is touted as a definite step towards turning the city litter-free.

While the problem of unsafe dumping of bio-medical waste is to be dealt with under a separate project by a private operator, the Corporation has been battling for a solution to the mounting garbage at the Vellalore compost yard.

A committee comprising elected representatives and officials of the Corporation had been formed to find ways to rid the city of garbage.

Besides forming beautification committees in each of the 72 wards, to keep them litter-free, and also sensitise the people on the importance of segregation of waste at source, the Corporation had been on the job of evolving a plan for garbage disposal at the compost yard.

A Pondicherry-based firm has been roped in for providing the technology for converting waste into manure and also market it.

The cost of the equipment is estimated at Rs.2 crores.

A microbial composting facility, designed by the Pondicherry Agro Corporation, will be established at the yard.

With a capacity to process 100 tonnes of waste at a given time, it is seen as a technology that can provide the much-needed solution to rid the dump yard of nearly 800 tonnes of waste that keeps coming in every day.

The TNAU will provide technical guidance in composting, which will conform to the norms of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.

Tie-up with ACC

The other plan is a tie-up with the Associated Cement Company, whose unit is located at Madukkarai.

The company has offered to make fuel pellets out of the garbage and these can be used as a substitute for oil or gas.

Once the TNPCB approves this plan, the company will set up a Rs.4.5-crore plant at the yard, according to Corporation officials.

Each ward will be provided with adequate number of pushcarts and containers. These will cost Rs.2 crores.

The Corporation is working to get sponsorship for these and may allow the sponsors to have their logos displayed.

While all these logistical support for the programme is for 54 wards, the Corporation wants total privatisation of waste management in 18 wards that fall under its South Zone.

According to the officials, total privatisation in one section will enable deploying its resources, including conservancy staff, in other areas that are to be covered by the new waste management plan.

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