Kerala - Kochi   

Government nod for setting up waste treatment facility at FACT

Staff Reporter

New facility to come up in 50 acres of land owned by the company

MAKING A POINT: Claude Alvares, member of the Supreme Court Committee on Hazardous Waste, inaugurating Organic Kerala - 2006 in the city on Wednesday.

KOCHI : The Government has given administrative sanction for setting up the Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility (TSDF) for hazardous waste management at FACT, Ambalamedu. The new facility will come up at 50 acres of land owned by the company.

Sources in the State Pollution Control Board (PCB) said that the Ministry of Fertilizers has also given its nod for handing over the land to Kerala Enviro Infrastructure Limited, a company set up by the Government for setting up TSDF in Kochi.

Tenders would be invited as part of short-listing the firms for setting up the facility. A temporary facility for storing hazardous waste would be introduced at the proposed site. The administrative sanction for establishing the TSDF came after the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee (SCMC) on Hazardous Wastes requested the apex court to initiate contempt proceedings against the Chief Secretary of Kerala for the Government's failure to set up a treatment facility for hazardous waste management in the State.

Claude Alvares, SCMC member, said on Wednesday that the committee members would meet on Friday to finalise the report on the hazardous waste scenario in Kerala. He said the committee recommendation to initiate contempt proceedings against the Chief Secretary was made as the State Government failed to comply with a series of directives given by the SCMC in connection with the setting up of TSDF at FACT.

Meanwhile, the SCMC has directed the Cochin Port Trust authorities to ensure that all consignments listed under categories such as paper wastes, furnace oil, waste oil/used oil, low sulphur waxy residue, non-ferrous metal scrap in any form, plastic scrap and wax in drums should be returned to the country of export if found violating hazardous wastes rules. The PCB has been asked to initiate action against those found violating this directive.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Scripting a success story
Government nod for setting up waste treatment facility at FACT
Call for awareness on Information Act
Organic Kerala 2006 gets under way
Training classes held for polling officials
Seminar on literary portrayal of women
BSNL staff stir
Around the City
In Kochi Today

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu