The Hindu            09.11.2013

Waste management remains major issue for corporation

Scientific management of the 190 tonnes of solid waste generated in Gulbarga and its recycling continues to be a major insurmountable problem for the Gulbarga City Corporation.

With its proposal of outsourcing the recycling of solid waste to a Mumbai-based company still pending with the State government for the past nine months, the city corporation has now come out with an alternative project.

The earlier project pending with the government since February this year involved no financial commitment from the city corporation as the Mumbai-based company was supposed to invest Rs. 16 crore and take the returns for a period of 25 years. Now, the city corporation proposes to invest Rs. 50 lakh on setting up four segregating units in the dumping site and recycle the solid waste. The Mumbai-based company is involved in similar jobs in Pune in Maharashtra and Rajkot in Gujarat. Recently, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has also awarded the work of recycling 300 tonnes of solid waste a day to the same company, which has incidentally been done months after the Gulbarga City Corporation submitted its proposal to hand over the task to the same company for government’s approval.

Apart from mounting pressure on the Udnur dumping site with the solid waste generated every day adding up to the huge mound of garbage and waste without being recycled or segregated, the unauthorised dumping of solid waste in the open fields and on either side of the roads on city outskirts by contractors entrusted with the responsibility of transporting solid waste, has become another problem for the city corporation now. In addition, the dumping of non-edible parts of slaughtered cattle, goats and sheep by illegal slaughterhouses in unauthorised dumping sites is causing a serious health hazard to the people. Residents of Hagarga, a village on the outskirts of the city, had raised a ruckus in the city recently by blocking vehicular traffic on the ring road for more than an hour, in protest against unauthorised dumping of waste on the Hagarga Road.

The entire four kilometre stretch commencing from the city outskirts to Hagarga has been filled with solid waste and non-edible parts of slaughtered animals, causing serious health hazard to the residents of the village and surrounding places.

Environmental Engineer and Health Officer in city corporation Abhay Kumar told The Hindu that the city corporation was initiating measures to end the menace of unauthorised dumping of solid waste on the city outskirts by setting up a weighbridge with Closed Circuit TV cameras at the entrance of the dumping site at Udnur to keep a tab on the movement of all vehicles assigned with the task of transporting solid waste.

The computers installed in the weighbridge would automatically record the entry of vehicles and their registration numbers, which would be the basis for settlement of bills by transporters.