The Hindu 05.04.2010
Corporation to launch two projects
Staff Reporter
KOCHI: With hardly five months left for the present civic administration in office, hectic preparations are on at various levels to launch new projects which were announced by the civic administrators earlier. The authorities have decided to inaugurate two projects in the city this month.
The first in the series will be the inauguration of the Refuse Derived Fuel Plant which has been set up at Brahmapuram. The Local Administration Minister Paloli Muhammad Kutty will inaugurate the project on April 16.
The plant can convert all burnable and non-degradable refuses into fuel pellets. These pellets are used by industrial units like cement factories and those which have furnaces.
The installation of the machinery of the plant will begin on Monday and will be completed within three days. The Rs. 2.5crore-plant has an installed capacity of processing 150 tonne solid waste. The rejects from the bio-degradable waste processing plant and other refuse can be used to create pellets. Presently, the civic administration is not collecting non-degradable waste from the city, official said.
Mr. Kutty also will also lay the foundation stone of the water treatment plant at Maradu which is part of the Pazhoor drinking water project.
The two projects are being implemented with the support of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
Delayed works
While the delay in getting the land acquired for the project and the tender excess quoted by the contractors delayed the project, it was the unstable floor at the Brahmapuram plant site which delayed the RDF plant.
The agency which won the tender for setting up the RDF plant had insisted that the plant would be installed only after securing the floor. The Solid Waste Processing Plant constructed for the Kochi corporation at the same premises had developed serious technical snags as the floor of the plant sank. Several cracks had also developed in the floor as the newly reclaimed land sank. This had also affected the stability of the buildings constructed there.
The corporation is engaged in a legal battle with the Andhra Pradesh Technology Development Corporation regarding the construction of the plant.
Rectification works
The civic authorities had entrusted the rectification works to a Thiruvananthapuram-based agency as the functioning of the plant was affected.
The machines of the plant have been dismantled. The rectification works are also progressing. The floor of the existing plant will soon be strengthened, officials said.
The rectification works would cost the Kochi Corporation Rs. 30 lakh, officials said.
