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Public Health / Sanitation

Garbage lies uncollected in Thrissur for the seventh day

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The Hindu 22.07.2009

Garbage lies uncollected in Thrissur for the seventh day

Staff Reporter

— Photo: K. K. Najeeb

HAZARDUOUS: Residents helplessly watch as water seeping from waste flows near their house in Lalur, Thrissur, on Tuesday.

Thrissur: As efforts to pump out waste water from the flooded trenching ground of Lalur dump yard continues, waste disposal from the Corporation areas was disrupted for the seventh consecutive day on Tuesday.

The entire city has rotten garbage lying scattered. Overflowing garbage bins and heaps of waste pose a serious health hazard for city dwellers. Intermittent showers worsened the condition.

Meanwhile, Lalur residents reiterated their stand that until the Corporation and the authorities found a lasting solution to their problem, no vehicle would be allowed to dump waste at Laloor.

An estimated 160 tonnes of waste is generated in the Corporation limits every day. It is dumped at Lalur. Kudumbashree workers dump an additional 25 tonnes there every day.

“Tonnes of the hazardous hospital waste too is dumped here everyday. This is a fight by people who live dangerously close to the waste,” said T. K. Vasu, chairman of the Lalur Malineekarana Virudha Samara Samithy. The dump yard, he alleged, posed a threat to the environment and their health. Meanwhile, District Collector V. K. Baby asked the Pollution Control Board and the Clean Kerala Mission to submit an urgent report on the measures to address the problems at Lalur.

At the meeting, attended by the Environmental Engineer of Kerala State Pollution Control Board T. Chitra Kumari, Clean Kerala Mission Director Ajaykumar Varma and Corporation Secretary M. R. Abhilash, the District Collector urged officials to submit the report within a day considering the seriousness of the problem.

Assistance and directions would be given to the Corporation on the basis of the report, the Collector said.

The BJP on Tuesday staged a protest in front of the Corporation office by performing a symbolic Vavu Bali condemning the alleged inefficiency of the Corporation in handling the waste disposal issue.

Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 July 2009 06:52
 

Garbage scam raises a stink

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Times of India 21.07.2009

Garbage scam raises a stink

Bangalore : Close on the heels of the Karnataka Housing Board scam comes yet another scam that has created quite a ruckus in the assembly.
Opposition parties have sought CBI probe into the Rs 100-crore garbage scam in the BBMP.

Raising the issue in the council, opposition leader V S Ugrappa distributed copies of an inquiry report, which stated that 30 medical officers, three health officers, 30 contractors and 26 BBMP employeeswere involved in the scam, causing a huge loss to the organization. The issue pertains to garbage clearance in the city between March 2007 and June 2008, during which time BBMP had paid around Rs 110 crore to contractors.

Demanding a discussion on the issue and CBI probe, Ugrappa said: "Chief minister B S Yeddyurappa is the Bangalore development minister. No action has been initiated against the guilty, even after eight months of obtaining the inquiry report. The CM has to take responsibility for this.''

As per the agreement, the contractor should have ensured the following functions -- road sweeping, garbage removal, removing silt from the drains, removing weeds, cleaning public toilets, removing garbage from vacant sites and removing illegal buntings and banners.

Suspecting goof-ups, the issue was handed over to Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force IGP N R Nadamani for investigation. Nadamani in his report in November 2008 had made the following observations:

* The officers and contractors have colluded and misappropriated money. The officers have failed in monitoring the effective removal of garbage and have not followed the prescribed procedures.

* Between March 2007 and June 2008, the contractors have encashed Rs 110.79 crore from the BBMP.

* The contractors have flouted norms and misappropriated crores of rupees. They have not done their job properly and not disposed garbage at designated sites. They have also failed to maintain a log book, keep track of labourers' attendance, PF details, and not issued salaries through cheques.

* 70% of the assigned work was not carried out in one of the packages. Recover 50% of the Rs 101.95 crore paid to the contractors. Also, recover Rs 8.84 crore from the contractors as they have not maintained logbooks to submit lead bills.

Admitting that corruption had become all pervasive, medical education minister Ramachandra Gowda said a re-inquiry had been ordered into the scam in February 2009 and they had received the report in May.
 

BMC panel passes plan for dumping site closure

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Times of India 21.07.2009

BMC panel passes plan for dumping site closure

MUMBAI: The BMC standing committee may have managed to escape the Bombay high court's ire by clearing a crucial Rs 4,408-crore proposal on Monday for the Deonar dumping ground's scientific closure. The same panel had earlier ignored repeated warnings from the judiciary for failure to come up with concrete steps for the dump site's development.

Pointing to the repercussions of yet another denial, committee members said they did not want to take any chances. "We will be implicated for contempt of court if we don't pass this proposal. The court is very clear in holding both bureaucrats and elected representatives responsible for playing with citizens' lives,'' said BJP corporator Ashish Shelar.

The committee had rejected the proposal, which was first tabled late last year. Fearing the high court's contempt proceedings against the BMC, the civic administration re-submitted the proposal last week. The court had slammed both the administration and the corporation for hampering citizens' "freedom to life'' by not doing their best to ease the woes of lakhs.

The court has initiated contempt proceedings against civic chief Jairaj Phatak for the BMC's failure to reduce pollution in and around Deonar. The Smoke Affected Residents' Forum had filed a PIL in 1996 demanding its closure. On June 7, an angry high court said the court had given numerous opportunities to the civic administration to rectify the situation, but it had repeatedly failed.

"Prima facie, it appears that apart from taking some superficial steps, the BMC has not made any concrete efforts. This is the last opportunity to the administration and related civic committees to bring about improvement. It is a matter of public health and we will not tolerate any further delay,'' the high court order read.

Mumbai generates 10,000 tonnes of waste a day, 70% of which is dumped on the saturated Deonar ground. The project would scientifically close half the ground and make the other half a sanitary landfill. The same public-private partnership model is to be repeated at Mulund and Kanjurmarg, helping ease the city's garbage woes

 


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