The Hindu 23.02.2010
Sholinganallur town panchayat council, residents oppose common compost yard proposal
Special Correspondent
Photo: B. Jothi Ramalingam
Stir: Residents of Sholinganallur assemble at the Kancheepuram Collectorate on Monday to submit a memorandum against the proposal to set up a common compost yard in the town panchayat. —
TAMBARAM: The council of Sholinganallur town panchayat has opposed a proposal of the Kancheepuram district administration to set up a common compost yard in its limits or some of the town panchayats in the southern suburbs of Chennai.
The 15-member council passed a resolution to this effect at a meeting on Wednesday.
Sholinganallur town panchayat chairman Arvind Ramesh said even before the council meeting, they had recorded their objections and the resolution was only a reflection of the views of all residents and civic groups in entire Sholinganallur.
On February 14, the Sholinganallur ‘Grama Panchayat' Residents Welfare Association, convened a meeting on Selliamman Koil Street, in which residents and office-bearers of civic groups from all areas of the town panchayat, representatives of political parties, including functionaries of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Pattali Makkal Katchi, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and the Left parties took part.
At the end of the three-hour meeting, residents undertook a signature campaign against the common compost yard project, which was sent to the town panchayat and was included as one of the subjects for discussion at the meeting on Wednesday. Mr.Ramesh said that on Monday, councillors, residents and office-bearers of civic groups went to the Kancheepuram Collectorate and submitted to senior officials, a petition, enclosed with a copy of the resolution passed at the council meeting.
In the memorandum addressed to the Collector, Santosh K.Misra, they alleged that the site believed to have been identified by the district administration was a catchment area.
Thus dumping of garbage collected from around 50 civic bodies, big and small, located on the southern outskirts of Chennai at this place would only aggravate the flooding problem faced by the Sholinganallur residents during monsoon.
The memorandum said that dumping of garbage at the proposed 25 acres of land on Kalaignar Karunanidhi Nagar would cause inconvenience to `anganwadi' centre and the primary school located near the proposed garbage dumping yard.
Dumping of garbage would also affect the groundwater quality since the catchment area served as a vital source for fulfilling local drinking water supply requirement and as well as some of the panchayats located nearby, they added.
G.Dhanapal, a member of the welfare association, said it was not fair for people of one locality to bear the brunt of garbage collected from areas far away.
The solution did not lie in projects that would cause a strain on the environment and natural resources, he added.
Agitation
On Monday, a group of residents representing about a dozen welfare associations of Mahalakshmi Nagar, Rajakilpakkam and Sembakkam met authorities of the Sembakkam town panchayat, asking them to intervene and solve the problems around the solid waste management project's compost yard.
The yard was located on the fringes of the Sembakkam lake, they said, and feared that water and air quality would be severely affected.
A. R. D. Loganathan, chairman of the town panchayat, clarified that their local body was among the first to adopt composting of kitchen waste.
They made sure that garbage disposed of near the yard did not spill over into residential localities nearby unlike many other local bodies that were dumping waste even inside the water-spread areas of waterbodies or burial grounds.
