The Hindu           27.12.2011

Kochi to seek new waste treatment plant

Staff Reporter

A delegation from the Kochi corporation will meet the
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Wednesday seeking his intervention for
setting up a new waste treatment plant for Kochi.

The
Kochi Corporation council had earlier cleared a proposal for setting up
a new plant at its Brahmapuram site as the existing one had developed
technical snags. The Kochi delegation will request the Chief Minister to
consider the case of the city along with Thiruvananthapuram, said Tony
Chammany, Kochi Mayor.

The State government should
decide on the technology that should be adopted for the new plant at
Brahmapuram and related matters. The intervention of the State
government is necessary considering the gravity of the situation, Mr.
Chammany said.

Meanwhile, the corporation council has
cleared a proposal for entrusting with a private agency the
responsibility of managing the existing plant at Brahmapuram. The
agency—Environ Green—was selected for running the plant as it quoted the
lowest rate for processing waste. Three agencies including the selected
one had responded to the expression of interest floated by the
corporation recently. The selected agency quoted Rs. 550 for processing
one metric tonne waste.

The Corporation will soon
sign an agreement with the agency for running the plant. The paper work
may take one week to complete, Mr. Chammany said.

The
civic body had to seek a new agency for running the plant as the Centre
for Environment and Development, which ran the plant earlier, expressed
its desire to end its service. The new agency will have to run the
plant till a new plant is established.

As the
existing plant is not functioning to its full capacity, there has been
accumulation of waste at the plant site. The civic authorities had
earlier cleared a portion of the accumulated waste through a process
termed as capping. The corporation will have to resort to capping again
for clearing the waste till a new plant is established there, civic
authorities said.

Though the Kerala High Court had
earlier directed the Kochi Corporation to permit neighbouring civic
bodies to make use of the Brahmapuram plant for waste processing, no one
has approached the civic body with such a request, said Mr. Chammany.

The
court had also directed the municipalities in the district which didn’t
have their own waste treatment plants to dump their refuse at
Brahmapuram waste treatment plant. The court issued the order after
considering the views of the Ernakulam District Collector, municipal
chairpersons and secretaries of 11 municipalities of Kochi and the Kochi
Mayor.

Mr. Chammany had strongly objected to the
proposal to allow the municipalities to dump waste at Brahmapuram. He
had also expressed apprehension that such a move would invite the wrath
of the general public. The Kochi Corporation is in the process of
obtaining a legal opinion on the judgement and if required, the civic
body will go in for an appeal, Mr. Chammany said.