The Hindu            05.02.2014

All city school to have biogas plants soon

All the city schools will begin a new chapter in
decentralised waste management during the next academic year by
installing biogas units on the campuses.

The Kochi
Corporation and Suchitwa Mission have joined hands in imparting the
practical lessons in waste processing in city schools.

Earlier,
the local body had obtained the clearance from the State authorities
for installing the plants in government schools within the city limits.
It had also pushed the case of aided and unaided schools in the city as
the second phase of the programme.

The other day, the
State government issued administrative sanction for installing biogas
plants in 54 schools in the city limits including government, aided and
un-aided institutions, said T.K. Ashraf, Chairman of the Health Standing
Committee of the Kochi Corporation.

The projects will be implemented with the financial support of the Suchitwa Mission.

The
agenda of the Corporation Council permitting an agency to set up the
units in government schools was passed during the last meeting. Though
only one agency had responded to the bid for setting up the units, it
was sanctioned at the meeting as the Mayor declared all the agenda
passed. The Mayor resorted to passing all the agenda in one stroke as a
section of the Congress councillors and LDF members staged a walk out.

The
construction of the plants will begin in March when schools will close
for the summer vacation. The units would be ready before June, when the
educational institutions will reopen. Students will be trained in
managing bio-degradable waste at their educational institutions. It
would be mostly food waste that would be going into the units. The
capacity of the biogas units that are to be provided to the institutions
will be proportional to the student strength, he said.

The
local body had earlier launched Bhoomika, an awareness programmes on
waste management for school students. The students were encouraged to
collect plastic refuse from their homes and store them at their schools,
which would be picked up by the local body. The students were also
provided incentives for the collection.

The local
body had also decided to provide nine biogas units and 1,500 pipe
compost units to residents of every division as part of the
decentralised waste management system. The beneficiaries of these
projects were selected by ward meetings. These units will be provided
subsidies too, Mr. Ashraf said.