Urban News

The Hindu 06.01.2010

Waste management plan obsolete

Staff Correspondent

— Photo: R. Eswarraj

MAKING A POINT: Jagannath, resource person, speaking at the workshop on solid waste management in Mangalore on Tuesday.

MANGALORE: The growth of the city and the garbage it generates seems to have exceeded all expectations.

Deputy Commissioner V. Ponnuraj has said that in 2003, under the Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environment Management Project (KUDCEMP), a plan was drawn up to upgrade the city’s solid waste management capability to 120 tonnes a day by 2020.

“But, already the city produces over 200 tonnes of solid waste a day. By the time the KUDCEMP project achieves its target of managing 120 tonnes of solid waste, the quantity of waste generated in the city will be several times our management capability,” he said.

Main problem

Speaking at the inauguration of a two-day workshop here on Tuesday, Mr. Ponnuraj said that the problem of solid waste management should be tackled at the source. A major problem was that households and commercial establishments did not sort their waste before dumping it, he said.

“A mechanism is needed where households and other establishments can be made to segregate their waste into biodegradable and non-biodegradable material,” he said.

Recommending the involvement of pourakarmikas and non-governmental organisations in planning waste management, he said, “We need a proper system for transporting waste from the source to the main garbage dumping yard. The present system should be done away with.” He said there was a problem with the way waste was transported from Moodbidri, Mulky and even Sullia to the Pacchanady dumping yard. “The garbage generated in these places should be managed locally. There were problems with identifying land for these local collection centres. But we are hopeful of sorting them out soon,” he said.

V. Jagannath, chair of the Housing and Urban Development Corporation, said that in India 1,20,000 tonnes of solid waste was generated every day, even as huge sums of money were spent on its management. (Town municipalities spend Rs. 431, city corporations Rs. 950 and metropolises Rs. 1,500 on managing one tonne of waste)

However, in Pune (Maharashtra), the city corporation was earning about Rs. 14 crore a year from waste management. “Over 7,000 personnel are involved in converting biodegradable waste into manure. Non-biodegradable waste is recycled,” he said.

Indian Express 22.12.2009

Experts approve Dadumajra plant

Objections still persist as councillors complain no MC official was included in the certification process

After weathering quite a few storms in the MC House, the management of the garbage processing plant at Dadumajra finally submitted the experts’ certification about the functioning of the plant to the Municipal Corporation last week.

The certification states “the plant is complete in itself and all the equipment which is meant to take care of operations has been installed with very good engineering. The plants and machinery installed are of good quality and of high standards and meet the requirements of the processing plant”.

But controversy still dogs JP Associates as the civic body has raised objections on the certification as no MC official was included in the process. Also, no copy of the MoU or detailed project report was provided to the experts, allege the councillors.

In June, the Municipal Corporation had directed JP Associates “to get the plant certified from an agency empanelled with the Union Government as to whether it is properly functional or not”. After this the company submitted a number of certificates, which were rejected by the MC as it was felt that the certifiers were not competent enough.

In November, the civic body supplied a list of five experts to the company and asked it to select three to get a certification about the functioning of the plant. The list had also been approved by the Central government. The three selected experts were Dr P D Grover, former professor of IIT Delhi, Dr Surendra Kumar, professor of Department of Chemical Engineering of IIT Roorkee, and Manager of IL&FS Energy Development Company Ltd, Deepak Gupta.

The certificate was submitted on December 16 during a hearing pertaining to the showcause notice issued against the management in April.

Earlier inquiry reports submitted in the MC House had pointed out discrepancies between what was promised in the DPR and the machinery finally installed. Another anomaly pointed out was that the certification does not mention how much garbage was being processed in the plant or what is the quantity of the end product produced.

Councillor Chander Mukhi Sharma said: “The experts should have been provided with a copy of the MoU and the DPR. The certification has been done without any documents being shown. All details should have been taken into consideration.”