Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Residents firm on demand to shift compost yard

K.V. Prasad

Plan to move court; to meet Minister on Jan. 18

COIMBATORE: The residents of Kurichi and Vellalore are firm that the garbage yard of the civic body along Chettipalayam Road should be shifted. To mount pressure on the Corporation, the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee plans to meet the Minister for Local Administration, K.P. Anbazhagan, on January 18.

The committee also intends to petition the Madras High Court for an order to the civic body to shift the yard.

The Corporation, on its part, feels aggrieved that the residents are not willing to give it time to sort out things, especially when a waste management programme is being worked out.

But the committee members say that enough time had been given to the Corporation to prevent health hazards from the waste dumped in the open. Five to seven residential colonies are still invaded by flies that feast on the garbage. Children suffer from diarrhoea and the residents blame it on the flies.

No solution so far

After having staged a series of demonstration, fast and even lodged a complaint with the Podanur Police, the committee is anguished that no solution has been provided so far to end the plight of the residents.

The Corporation is also in a tight spot. Its waste management programme has to take off to end health hazards from the garbage dumps. At present the waste is disposed of only through a process of land filling. But it is found inadequate to dispose of more than 700 tonnes of garbage every day.

The Corporation is actively pursuing a waste-to-manure project and is confident of implementing it soon. But it has the onerous task of sensitising its workers and the public on segregation of waste at source, though options for segregation at the waste-to-manure plant are also available.

Pollution control norms actually insist on segregation at source.

As all these are expected to take some time, the residents around the yard feel that any further wait for things to happen will only worsen the sanitary conditions in their area because of the huge mounds of garbage that persist in the yard.

A release from the committee on Tuesday said that the intention to move the court was to plead for an order to the Podanur Police to initiate action against the Corporation Commissioner and other officials concerned on the complaint lodged earlier by the residents that blamed the Corporation for risk to their health.

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