The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Burning of garbage continues in southern suburbs

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Sunday, Jun 14, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Burning of garbage continues in southern suburbs

K. Manikandan

Privatisation of solid waste management cited as reason behind increase in garbage dumping

— Photo: A. Muralitharan

Garbage seen burning at the dumping yard of Pallavaram Municipality in Ganapathypuram recently.

TAMBARAM: Despite specific court orders to the State government not to set fire to garbage mounds, the southern suburbs of Chennai continue to be under a blanket of smoke.

Residents said that the privatisation of solid waste management had resulted in an increase in the quantity of garbage being dumped at the existing yards.

At many places the refuse cover was increasing, threatening natural resources such as waterbodies.

A drive on the nearly 11-km-long Pallavaram-Thoraipakkam Radial Road will show non-stop burning of garbage at different spots. At a point where the stretch begins, one can notice how huge mounds of garbage dumped by the Pallavaram Municipality in Ganapathypuram have been spreading rapidly across the Pallavaram ‘Periya Eri,’ which is already choked by industrial effluents and sewage, apart from encroachments.

The garbage dumping site seemed to be restricted to the fringes around the burial ground-cum-cremation shed. But now, sheets of garbage are eating into the water spread of the lake.

A little further, near the Keelkattalai junction, small mounds of garbage dumped by rural local bodies and industrial units can be seen burning.

All along the stretch of the road at Narayanapuram and Pallikaranai and Thoraipakkam — at the intersection of the Radial Road and Rajiv Gandhi Salai — burning of garbage continues. Such sights are also common in open spaces along Velachery Main Road at Medavakkam and in Sholinganallur along Kalaignar Karunanidhi Salai and the Medavakkam-Sholinganallur Road, said A.Tiruneelakantan, a Sithalapakkam resident.

Decades-old problem

The burning of garbage in Kannadapalayam is a decades-old problem which the Tambaram Municipal administration and other State government agencies are aware of. Mr. Tiruneelakantan said the magnitude of the problems was only a pointer to the importance or the lack of it attached by the State government agencies to implementing effective solid waste management practices.

Engineers of the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply said they were strictly complying with court rulings and garbage was set on fire by miscreants and rag-pickers.

The permanent solution to problems of garbage disposal and collection was the modern, integrated compost yard under construction at Venkatamangalam near Vandalur.

Once completed, garbage mounds such as the one in Kannadapalayam or Ganapathypuram and their burning would be a thing of the past, they said.

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