The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : No concrete plan for dumping waste

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Sunday, Oct 29, 2006
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Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

No concrete plan for dumping waste

Staff Reporter

Meeting fails to find a solution

KOCHI: The city corporation is still clueless on where and how to dump garbage, with the Navy unwilling to extend the October 31 deadline for stopping dumping of waste on the Willingdon island.

Though four weeks have passed after the earlier deadline elapsed, the corporation authorities are yet to find a solution.

A meeting of elected representatives convened by the Mayor on Saturday failed to come up with any concrete suggestion for resolving the impasse. The representatives once again stressed the need to set up decentralised waste processing units, but could not recommend where and how to dump garbage from November 1.

Meetings to continue

Marathon meetings convened by the corporation authorities to find a site for dumping will continue. The Mayor has now convened a meeting of representatives of educational institutions, non-governmental and voluntary organisations, merchants and officials on November 1.

Authorities are now planning to identify a few sites within the city and on its outskirts.

It is learnt that the locations will not be made public, fearing resistance from local people to dumping of garbage in their areas.

The ruling front in the corporation council is confident that garbage collection and disposal will not be a problem. But a majority of the councillors are not sure if the temporary plans will work smoothly.

The corporation has told the Kerala High Court that it will buy four hectares of land at Poovanthuruthu for dumping waste. The court had earlier asked the civic body to explain the proposed project for processing solid waste.

In the reply to the court, the corporation secretary said steps would be taken to set up biogas plants and compost manufacturing units.

Waste will be dumped on the land at Poovanthuruthu till work on a solid-waste processing plant at Brahmapuram is completed. The foundation stone for plant will be laid on November 1. It will come up on nearly 15 hectares of land.

The Andhra Pradesh Technology Development Corporation will set up the plant. The corporation has not been able to hand over the land to the company. The authorities have also not taken steps for constructing an approach road to the proposed site.

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