The Hindu 17.09.2009

Water supply for all urban areas

Staff Reporter

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Government has prepared a comprehensive plan for 100 per cent coverage of the water supply and sewerage system in urban areas under a project worth Rs.1759.73 crore.

Disclosing this here, Local Government, Industry and Commerce Minister Manoranjan Kalia said the Local Government Department was committed to providing basic civic services to the urban population such as potable drinking water, sewerage network, sewage treatment plants, roads and streetlights.

He said adequate attention was not paid in the past to sewage treatment plants, so consequently rivers, drains and canals were getting polluted and this was affecting the health of the people who depended upon canal-based schemes for drinking water.

The Hindu 17.09.2009

City of Destiny generating 1,300 tonnes of garbage a day

Staff Reporter

— Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Joga Rao Bhamidipati, vice-president, ITC Paper Boards and Speciality Papers Division, delivering a lecture in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. G.S. Sivakumar, CII former chairman, Vizag Zone, K.V. Bhaskar, present chairman and Vinay Iyer of CII Vizag Zone are also seen.

VISAKHAPATNAM: With booming population, garbage disposal is posing as a big threat, says Joga Rao Bhamidipati, Vice-President (commercials), ITC Limited (paperboards & specialty papers division).

Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam are respectively generating 4200 and 1300 tonnes of garbage per day with not much landfill area. With population growing by two crore a year, every child born is leading to creation of half-a-kilo garbage per day. With every family of four members generating four kg per day, one should feel the responsibility for recycling it to the maximum extent possible to minimise the damage on mother earth.

‘22 trees were cut’

Mr. Rao, who gave a presentation on `Wealth Out of Waste (WOW) Initiative’ at a meeting conducted by CII on Wednesday, cited how on an average per capita consumption of 9.8 kg of paper was leading to axing of trees at fast pace. Despite popularity of Information Technology, the growth of paper consumption is growing by 10 per cent per annum.

He said for every tonne of paper consumed, 22 fully grown trees were cut. He said ITC had taken the WOW Initiative to recycle paper and other waste so as to reduce damage to the environment.

Expressing concern over excessive use of tissue papers in foreign countries, he said compared to per capita paper consumption of 9.8 kg in India, in Dubai the consumption was 139 kg. For consuming one tonne of aluminium, seven tonnes of natural resources was being used, he pointed out. Similarly, for producing one tonne gold, five lakh tonnes of natural resources have to be destroyed.

Mr. Rao said by recycling one tonne of waste paper, one could generate 100 per cent good paper. He said apart from educating the public on minimising garbage creation by changing usage pattern and checking population, one should encourage the recycling initiative all over the country as an eco-friendly measure, he emphasised.

S. Krishna Murthy, Additional Commissioner of Greater Visakha Municipal Corporation, said they were trying to implement WOW initiative in one zone of the corporation area in coordination with ITC.CII Vizag zone chairman K.V. Bhaskar and past chairman G.S. Siva Kumar, spoke.