Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

PCB raps local bodies

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala State Pollution Control Board (PCB) has strongly criticised the local bodies for not taking adequate steps for waste treatment.

In a statement here on Friday, Board Chairman G Rajmohan said faulty sewerage and defects in the solid waste management facilities in municipalities and other local bodies had been identified as the main cause for environmental pollution.

As per the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Act which came into effect at the national level on September 25, 2000, the local bodies should bear the responsibility for putting in place effective arrangements for storing, segregating, transporting and disposing the solid waste generated in their areas.

The PCB had circulated the norms and notices in this regard to the local bodies several times, but their response was disappointing.

The Act seeking to prevent water pollution which came into effect in 1974 insists on installing facilities for effective treatment of sewage effluent.

However, many of the local bodies in the urban areas of the State did not have any sewerage system even for namesake, the PCB Chairman said.

The national Act had stipulated a timeframe for implementing the solid waste treatment schemes. Accordingly, the existing land-fill sites were to be renovated before December 31, 2001, while new sites were to be located and made operational before December 31, 2002.

The Act had also stated that the waste treatment facilities were to be installed in all local bodies before December 31, 2003, and their working were to be reviewed every six months.

But none of the local bodies adhered to this timeframe, while some which had taken initiatives abandoned them halfway, the statement said.

Emphasising that the term ‘municipal authority’ covered all the local bodies, the PCB Chairman said the law mandated that all the metropolitan cities should submit their annual reports in the specified format to the secretary in charge of the urban development affairs before June 30 every year.

Other local bodies were to submit their reports to the respective District Collectors by that date.

The copies of those reports should have been made available to the State PCBs. But only a handful of local bodies in the State submitted their annual reports to the Pollution Control Board, the Chairman said adding that this could only be viewed as ‘gross negligence’ on the part of the local bodies.

The statement made it clear that the local bodies should obtain prior permission from the PCB for launching facilities for solid waste treatment, sewerage and for handling waste from slaughterhouses.

The waste treatment schemes started by some local bodies without the necessary sanction from the PCB were not working properly as they did not maintain the required technical standards.

The local bodies were incurring substantial wasteful expenditure for the maintenance of such defective waste treatment facilities, it pointed out.

The board had made special arrangements for speedy clearance of the waste treatment proposals of the local bodies in all its offices, the statement said.

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